Casse's Flashbacks
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: She's neither X-Men, nor Common People. She needs a category all her own.
1. Default Chapter

The seat was hard and the air was a chilly 65 degrees. Winter, didn't ya know? Terrible weather for a 13-year-old teenager to be gallivanting around in a day Glo blue bikini top and frayed jean daisy dukes. She just sat there, clutching her money in her hand.   
  
This was her break. It was their fault. They'd killed her. It's been years now, but they day haunted her and her father. He'd become too in drawn, too silent, almost inhuman, like a piece of him had died with her.   
  
**Tsuki.....love you.....** she shivered a little bit at Patric voice and leaned back against the back of the bench waiting for the bus.   
  
**I can't Patty-Patch, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I love them, I love you more than life; but I can't. Not anymore. Not now.** Her mind cried and she was desperately trying now to stifle her breath and the tears that wanted to fall.   
  
She heard the horn go and she blinked the tears that had welled as she stood up picking up her duffel bag waiting for it to stop. Patric hadn't replied. Either she'd broken his trust, along with their bond, or he was biting his tongue -which he often did- to keep himself from getting here and dragging her back by a handful of her hair and all the love he had that she had. The same that would let him take her home.  
  
The bus screeched to a halt and she nodded walking up and slipping her money in, looking at the driver a few seconds. He didn't seem to even care she'd gotten on. She could be like that, couldn't she? Not care that anyone was   
  
there? Not let anyone ever hurt her again?   
  
She slide into the fourth row and seats and huddle down, looking back out a second.   
  
**I'll be back......I promise....once I get my feet**   
  
The bus started to move and it drove past a large sign an circus playing in Salem City, run by people with interesting names. It was called Riventasmic. She studied the sign while it passed and leaned a temple again the glass. Riventasmic. Riven. She'd be Riven, no longer anyone else. no ties, no family, no cares. Just The Riven. 


	2. F2 Through The Loop, Part 1

(SpellSong FlashBack 2)  
  
"Through the Loop Part 1"  
  
She opened her eyes, and was met by many surprises. One, the sky was blue, not some smokey color like normal. For the large smog and dirt cloud was gone. Two, she was feeling pain all over. She didn't feel pain, she'd never felt pain. Not like this atleast. And the wounds, they weren't healing inward on themselves and stopping it. She sat up and cringed as the gash along her right skin slid across the ground and she did what she always did.  
  
"DAMN-fuck!"  
  
She ran her fingers along it only to bring them up covered in blood. A blood she rarely ever saw. The scent of her blood almost as empty as the scent she didn't have. Like she just didn't exist. That matched her mind, the one of many children in her family, but the only one who showed up a psi-void, like she was just a not there at all. She liked that though.  
  
She wiped the blood on the ground, getting dirt on her fingers now mixed with the blood as she supported herself to get up, biting back a scream that would have told her finally what true pain, atleast physical pain, was. A large house and temple was looming to her right side.   
  
Old built of stone. Not like ages old. It looked like it might have only been here 100 years or so, not like ages. But it was old type. A all too good, unfalling apart yet, Japanese temple from the looks of it, and as she twirled to look around, she was surrounded by foliage -and not that that was bad- but nothing. Nothing seemed modern at all.  
  
So she took off with another slur of swearing toward the creepy old-modern temple.  
  
  
  
And up the path she went to the door to the temple, just to be held at an odd stance when she noticed the old man, who must have been about as old as the temple she thought by the lines on his face, that was even though he sat in a lotus position his eyes closed with a staff balanced across her nobly knees. He's asleep she thought cruelly. Little old freak's just asleep.   
  
She started edging up to him, pulling The Perfection around her, so her step would make no sound as she started making faces at him barely inches from his own face.  
  
"Geee, what stupid luck. Your just asleep you dumb little assh-" she never did get to finish her sentence because some kinda field seemed to grab her both pushing her from him by a foot or so and holding her, as the wicked freak with his eyes closed still struck her hard as hell straight on her head with the thick end of his staff.  
  
"OWW! You lousy no good bastard!!!!"  
  
It was starting to drive her nutz. She never felt pain really before, not that lasted this long, which might have been all of two minutes or so, an eternity in her very cracked world. It was like enough to drive one nutz now. He whacked her again, harder, and then once more. She was backing up clutching her hands over her skull even though her hair was flooding down around her everywhere.  
  
"No more!" The little man was already standing holding the staff at her imposingly once the dots in front of her eyes grew lighter though wouldn't go away. Her skull felt like it was on fire.  
  
"If children can speak then they deserve not to speak! Close thy mouth, as thine heart is as such!"  
  
Her eyes widen. The little freak was speaking to her like it actually matter what he said. She'd get him. Yeah she'd get him………soon as the world stopped spinning. She'd get him good, gut him from nose to pelvis, watch his writhe and scream. Suddenly she was whacked again.  
  
"God Fuc-" but she stopped with the imposing movement of the staff of the little man as it was still twice his size and he wielding it like nothing, biting down on her tongue, hard enough to draw pain and blood there too. No one talked to her that way! No one!  
  
"Good. Good children be treated with respect. Bad be children be deserving-" he said motioning the large stick at her imposingly again, and it was enough to make her take a step back. Her powers weren't working here. She was really besides her fighting skill off balance here. She was on guard tighter. She couldn't be herself here. She though never would realize for many months how wrong that statement was.  
  
"Now stop that ugly wordage that is only of the foul heathen and let go of that steel hold on golden bouts inside."  
  
She wasn't sure if she was more confused of the way he was talking, or the way the world was suddenly spinning, making her feel like water going down a drain, the soapy bubbles like spots in front of her eyes suddenly pulling her darker and darker. It kept whirling till everything was suddenly a darker oblivion than her hair. 


	3. F3 Through the Loop, Part 2

She sat silently on the grey blue rock, her legs curled at her side as she looked over the forest from the cliff embankment it sat over, watching the wind rustle the trees in the forest silently as the sun began to rise silently. The kamona type robe she was only aloud to be in now, still had her completely at odds, as did the man who was helping her.   
  
She took a deep breath and let it out as her finger played lightly over the holes of the ivory flute as she brought it to her lips. It was beautifully made, pure white ivory, a dragon with mouth open and that was where the music came from; the end with the mouth out. He'd said it meant it was be cradled in honor's breast and carried on it's tongue whatever that had meant.  
  
As the instrument met her lips, a sound was produced. A simple note, clean and pure. And slowly a melody began to form. It was heartbreaking, and tender to an edge. More than beautiful, it was awe inspiring and almost mesmerizing, and she was beginning to loose herself in the Selaque.   
  
Riven -for the 1st time- wasn't overwhelmingly unhappy, but she wasn't sure she was happy or contented either. She just closed her eyes and let the music do as he told her, she let the music play on it's self without any effort or will behind it. Just letting her grip on the world lessen again by an edge.  
  
She'd been stuck here a few months grudgingly now thanks to the fact both her powers and her technologies didn't work at all here. She'd taken it all off except her wristlets and a simple single silver locket she wore around her neck. It held two baby pictures, a boy and a girl no older than maybe a few weeks old.  
  
She'd been stripped of everything that was hers literally that had been on her and they were refusing to call her anything but 'student'. Completely annoyed though she learn a lot through the pain Master Yido, the itty bitty senshi, Zen Master, had caused her. Since she'd been a born thing like pain never lasted long for her, now they lasted and turned into stinging, throbbing green and purple bruises. Ugly blemishes on her pale white skin.  
  
Oh, yes, she was definitely becoming intimate with pain.  
  
She could feel Patric stronger often stronger emotionally though not always, and sometimes even the connection with Jen-ari was stronger now, too. She kept playing. They were the remnants of what had been a short lived happiness a life ago. She thought a second of her old brother, and the of her father with a resigned mental sigh.  
  
He -her father- hated her. Loved her.  
  
Of course she'd/he'd brought it on themselves. It'd all started with the "Day Star" heist. A all too large diamond for anyone's good with and orange-yellow inside somehow giving to it's name. She'd gone after it and he's gone after a thief in the area who struck and left the card that read only Riven in blood red letters.  
  
The music produced though beautiful became strong enough for any listener to drop to tears, from even the most close hearted person though her eyes remained closed and dry as all she did was play.  
  
He'd gone looking for a thief and found his daughter clad in a black cat burglar suit literally with tools on her hips. His only girl, his "akiko tsuki". They'd been so close and though she'd run away so long ago he'd never expected to find her here. Not doing this. Not her, she was his angel, his Child Moon. She'd seen his face like she had ripped his heart(again) with her bare hands.  
  
He'd come. She should have known.  
  
After all- he was an X-Men.  
  
A soft feeling overwhelmed her mind slowly and she looked up finally. Her fingers stopped playing as her light blue eyes landed on Master Yido watching her silently. He seemed to be looking at her contentedly, like he knew some secret -some hidden thing about her- that she'd never known herself.  
  
He'd been working with her in many ways since she'd shown up, not accepting her refusals or her complaints. She'd been made to wash stones till her hands ached, and the gong, she'd cleaned it 7 or 8 times by now even though it was huge. She'd been started in sparring -another painful thing- with people she barely even knew how to fight against.  
  
She was though getting better at it slowly and pain didn't seem so terrible till she went through the Walkway of Death. When there, well, she didn't have words to explain that pain, nor that cold comfort of that pain of it at the same time. It had taken her days to realize why he'd sent her there, what everyone eventually realized.  
  
She *was* alive, so very, very blessedly alive.  
  
He was growing on her like mold, a little more each day. He'd tended her wounds just to batter and bruise her again and then tend to them again. He taught her and he made her think with more than the coldness for the 1st time in almost 5 or 6 years now.  
  
{What's it like to come home, Patty-Patch?} she asked silently as Master Yido motioned to her to come and she stood accordingly and started walking behind him.  
  
{It's a warm, safe feeling. Where you know you can't be hurt. Where people care about you and take care of you.} her brother's voice whispered softly insider her mind……or was it her own?  
  
She brushed back her long hair, since it was wind blown and only allowed to be worn down. It hung like a black curtain around her to past her waist. It was dinner time, and she'd been playing all day. The sun folding the sky in stars already.  
  
She looked out at it for a second thinking about Riven. She wasn't Riven. She was Casse. Casse -  
  
No Casse was enough for now. She was Casse. Not any of the others, just Casse. Maybe that would work.  
  
Casse……and maybe that was enough from now. She smiled slightly almost like child who'd found a rainbow and started off after Master Yido, carrying the flute on slightly outstretched hands as was the only way she was aloud.  
  
She watched Master Yido's back as he walked once she caught up, used to the slippers she had to where with the kamona but not how small she had to make her steps due to it so used to long strides. This dress required small. She watched his strides, as he walked with the staff that was twice his height and more than three times his weight (she couldn't even lift it herself and she was much taller than him even) while he wielded the thing as is if it were lighter than air.  
  
And Casse began to wonder if she was coming home for the first time since she was 6. 


	4. F4 Through the Loop, Part 3

"Through the Loop" Part III  
  
(Flashback 4)  
  
Casse was excited, though in a quite way, trying to still the racing beat that throbbed inside her breast most silently, and raced inside her veins. It was today!!! She was *finally* here.  
  
Years had passed some in silence and solitude, some in confusion and trial, all in learning. Some lessons had to be taught over and over, then again and again if she didn't understand or seem to grasp. Especially the 'we are all equal' thing, seeing as she still didn't like bugs or such, and it took a while to not anything about them, but let them be…..even if that meant they were *on* her.  
  
She'd trained with many a weapon, and she had found that easy as she was always fast on the up take of martial training and it came with four different forms of fighting involved, though it would be so simple compared to the next task. She spent a year and months in silent solitude and servitude, to both Master Beshitod and Master Yido. A lesson in humbleness, one in which you wait, you help…….and you did not speak.  
  
Which took Casse forever to learn, since she was based to herself and loosing her connection to her brother. It took though that year to realize, since she was not a humble person, that she could be, and that she always could stand on her own two feet without Patric as her only foundation, her only fall back. Along with that, in that time, she learned many other lessons within herself; about who she truly was when she wasn't trying to hide who she was.  
  
And she was beautiful. Not some monster.  
  
She sat still as the other women washed her hair (which now reached the low end of the backs of her knees) and tied it up with twiners and lacquer pins of pure white and black ornamentally for unsaid reasons. Next they powdered her face white, though it only seemed to match the normal color of her skin and blend in. She was starting to wonder how long she could sit still if she felt so incredibly over joyed.  
  
IT was today!  
  
Casse began also to wonder if she was supposed to be shaking with this feeling, this feeling she hadn't felt in forever, abounding over her body, surrounding her like a blanket. Making her feel almost like an impatient child staring at a clock in the wee hours of the morning on Christmas. Her heart just couldn't be stopped. She could remember his words from a month ago perfectly.  
  
"Stay among the Thy-Che you will for three weeks for Purification. Assemble thyself to steps of SiWongLi as the first rays of sunset light the heavens aflame. The stand, Be and be known"  
  
It was her hope and she'd waiting 3 almost 4 long years to hear that. Funny, a girl, a woman, someone who wouldn't wait for someone to look at their watch for the time of day, had waited, overjoyed at something this simple, but it was so much more. This was the day she received her recognition. This was the day, the first day in all that time, she would receive her name.  
  
Casse was bathed in rose and herb scented water mixed with lily petals, while incense filled the room with surrounded her; all silently. All her skin, even her face under make up, gleamed a soft fresh white, like new fallen snow, unlike her normal light blue hue that would glow from her skin when she had her powers. Her hair felt softer than the flowers they were beginning to intertwine in it with two other garlands. One ran over the fresh white kamona from over one shoulder to under her other arm, and one circled her right ankle, both in a mirad of colors symbolizing all she had been through to get to this moment.   
  
She would go there now; to the temple in the mountains where she must walk, not run to this temple older than all the others, where none were allowed till now and never allowed since then, and never again afterwards. She was to walk barefoot, both without destroying or rumpling the image she now portrayed no disturbing being or bud on her way.  
  
That though, compared to what shed been put through here seem simple, as the test of purification in Thy-Che were not. A test of pain without response, as they'd been trained to not respond to violence in the third year. Test of innocence and purity, thing she'd never even though at times she might still possess; when reverting to a child-like form. Her mind was silent from hours, days, of just ended mediation, while her stomach was empty except for the crystalline water.  
  
Casse's body though trembled with excitement, through the pain in her back that seemed like only a prick now and she was used to, but it always reminded her now that she was normal -human-, vulnerable in this state, due to the formation of her bones and the hallowness of them. Pain was something she was almost used to though she rarely experience anymore, except in sparring, and that was rarer now as she was reaching this point. She'd master all four forms of fighting much faster than those trained with her, and that of controlling her reactions and maintaining her battle ready mind.   
  
She knew how to fight, and that was all she had known. She'd never known then, that that was only the beginning, and things so simple and so stupid could cost much more than that. After it all, hardship and harrowed wind, suffer night and silent plight, time of joy and sorrow alike, she had come to her triumph; her pinnacle.   
  
It was her night, and one she would never forget.  
  
***********************  
  
She kneeled silently, her feet dusty from walking on trail of her own making as none exsisted to this place. Her legs ached, but with her training she could for go acknowledging that till she was resting and on her own time. She kept her head bowed, though she longed to spin in circles almost and stare at the majesty of the place she was within.  
  
The room it's self was huge beyond almost measure, spanning out forever with columns and wall designs, and the large mural of the dragon of wisdom and balance on the ceiling, all made from tiny tiny stones. Some were unfinished still, stones each to be added by those who passed through. Who made it. Her heart beat now with a nervous beat.   
  
Judge. Jury. They were both. SiWongLi was the temple of the High Master's those who had attainted their places over whole life times and gauged students performances and learning to the attributes of the teaching they were given in all the time they need. She worried sometimes as she went faster than most. She was beginning to physically tremble and prayed softly though that it didn't show as she waited quietly, kneeling, head bent for their words.  
  
"Child of the Great Dragon, Student of the Path," a shiver ran down her spine as if someone had taken a feather across her back softly at an old mans voice rang out across the room, echoing and strong as any youngman, with an energy and a peace that was almost profound to just hear,  
  
"You have been called, the scales have set. Are you worthy of his honor, student?"  
  
Casse kept her head bowed, aware silently she had been addressed and both to the fact she was not allowed to speak within here yet, till she was given that privileging openly. She remained quite. Her honor and her worth were still things that clashed in her mind. She'd committed mass murder in her time, she'd watched and listened as babies we crushed in buildings.   
  
That didn't mean she didn't regret them; Oh, how she regretted them now; but she could still hear the cries and screams of her victims of the past, the future.   
  
"Rise, child, and walk forward to the point."  
  
She moved silently, an ease and grace to her movements like a dancer, more than a fighter, walking to the front of the room before the awning and the rise that would lead to the stairs of where they sat. She watched her feet, her hands behind her back as she walked.  
  
"This day you have been given a gift, you have been reberverated to state where you will no longer be just what you have been, nor more than what you still have to become. Do you wish to proceed?"  
  
Casse bowed her head slightly more inclined and a slight movement both down and up with her knees. A symbolism of approval or wish only used during the time of servitude when no words were allowed, that year ago now. The only form and way she was allowed it for the moment, so remained in that stance.  
  
"So you've said, so shall it be. Rise, child, and come. Cast your eyes to the level of scale. Your burdens are past, remove them as you would a single strain of long past article."  
  
She walked forward silently to the scale and place both of the garlands on the scale silently, watching it weighed against a feather. Her heart could have flopped or even stopped as she watched the man, one she'd never met, sided on each by two others. Another she'd never met and Master Yido, who almost gave her a disparaging expression to realize she wasn't paying attention.  
  
Casse watched the feather the small tiny feather balance out exactly, after tittering many times back and forth before stopping.  
  
"Your heart is light, but has far to go. Your journey will be rough and fraught with consequence; though there will be those to help you if you except them. You have been brought to the sacred temple of the Dragon for you right and so you are given it."  
  
Her heart was shaking, and then she wondered if ti wasn't her whole body shaking with both fear and anticipation, as Master Yido spoke those words. And then the second man she didn't know began to speak now.  
  
"So it is proclaimed and so shall you be. Tandy, wandering Child of the Great Dragon of Life."  
  
She wasn't sure fi she could remember how to breath as she felt like she could almost fly she was so light, so happy, though making herself remain in once place. Her heart almost beating out a tune of her happiness she was surprised the whole world couldn't hear. As trained in such for ceremony, she nodded, and began to back away in small steps.  
  
"Remain, Tandy."  
  
Casse -Tandy- stopped dead cold. Had she forgotten something?  
  
"You have been given to weight and to responsibility and also two more things."  
  
A servant from the side, a young child, with kamona robe in black and a small tap hat walked out with the ivory flute on a black silk looking fabric that draped his hands. She was overwhelmed, and the breath in her chest had all but fled her, as a soft gasp reached her lips as the boy simply stood by her, and she looked up slowly, trying to swallow though her throat had suddenly gone dry.  
  
"Tacked to a privilege a duty, you are now given, Tandy. Guard ye well, the land that has taught you and bathed you in the wisdom of the dragon. There are those who would see you gone and those who trust to have you put there. Guard ye well, Old Japan."  
  
Tears were welling up in her eyes, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to stand completely still much longer, least she break to tears of joy. She'd never expected it. Never in all those years. Her eyes though blurred by forming tears she could not, would not, stop, landed slowly on Master Yido. He was the only of three Guardians, and the only one here to make her one.  
  
He was remaining silent though watching her. She wished for a second she was a more expressive person almost, though she bowed her head again in acceptance and held her hands out in which the flute now wrapped in the black fabric was laid on them. She had been in a sense, in more than a few, now adopted and belonged, to both a land and a man who believed in her. 


	5. F5 Escape From the Ringer

"Escape From the Ringer"  
  
SpellSong…..and so many others  
  
She watched the sleepy town silently out the mirrored soft and yet deep smokey blue's others often called her eyes. It was still early for the town, it's inhabitance mostly all still asleep aside from those who were shuffling and opening business in preparation or the occasional early riser here and there across all the miles; most still tired from last night. It had been a grand bash, rip-roaring, bright and beautiful, filled with spicy food, lights and dancing. It had gone on for hours and they'd stayed the whole time. It had been terrific; all too wonderful.  
  
It had been her last.  
  
Casse let her hair blow around her in the light breeze, draping it's self like a dark curtain around her naked body; where naught of her could be seen but the faint light blue glow, till you reached the low curve of her bottom and her thighs. It was a grand contrast again to see the deep raven color near pale and blue and added to the soft shimmer that surrounded, giving glow, to the tattoo on her upper thigh of her right leg of a Japanese A & K, which would translate to the American C and M for meaning though. Her fingers barely touched the rail, not letting go, but not holding on, and not pulling away just yet either.  
  
She wished she had the heart to stay, but it was taking all her heart to leave - and it wouldn't even be coming with her.  
  
A soft mummer met her ears, no louder than the sound of a breath, and she turned looking back a second at the man who lay in the bed in peaceful slumber. Her lover, her light, the man who set her free. There would be no good-byes this time. No letting his eyes, or his voice, his warmth or -her- heart stop her this time.  
  
As the air around Casse began to shimmer colorlessly a few seconds and then added to a stronger blue glow as the matrix reacted, she drew on it and clothing form fitting her body appeared silently on her. A pair of tight leather black pants, and a same colored tight wrap shirt which cut down in a v-neck almost an inch past the center of her chest with a narrow and revealing cut.   
  
Watching him silently she began to pull up her long hair with a black lacquer pin that just appeared between her fingers. She thought about it again. His touch against her skin, simply his fingers even in just holding her for a bare second before she looked away towards the window almost mournfully in silence working on finishing her hair.  
  
Two weeks ago she'd tried this two weeks ago, and then a an arm had circled her wrist and a hand her other hand, his lips so close to her ear; but making her feel regretful and thrilled all at once. He'd told her to stay, that they'd get through this all together, that he wasn't worried and he could take care of himself. After all look where he'd come from.  
  
But it wasn't about that, Casse whispered solemnly to the air soundlessly, it was about……  
  
As she wound her hair all up, and braided a few strands added to the exotic effect of her hair style, she walked silently, her bare feet padding softer than Clairsentience -or hyper/super sense- could even pick up; thinking that this time she had to. She couldn't let it all go on. Not at this cost, no matter how much it felt like a dagger was starting to rip her heart.  
  
Casse knelt by the side of the bed looking at his face quietly, watching him sleep, and wondered for a second if he was dreaming of her or even what he might be dreaming of. It hurt. A lot. She reached out a second, but stopped herself before her finger tips alone would have caressed his cheek.  
  
She wouldn't cry, wouldn't let herself. He was just a guy. Just like the rest of them, she told herself even as she knew she was lying straight to herself. He mumbled something and shifted. She sat there a second and then reached out and brushed the soft long bangs of his hair from his face and lay a gently kiss against his cheek, softer than the caress of the wind or the touch of a rose petal.   
  
She stood and turned silently walking to the desk, concentrating on breathing, letting the rest work itself as her string thin anklets started shifting and moving, growing into completely perfect fitting boots from the tips of her toes to an inch or so below the middle of her calf. She picked up the piece of paper and looked at it silently a few seconds, reading over the words, her lips moving ever so slightly.  
  
((I have left thee with a kiss,  
  
All I ask you do not miss.  
  
I have left with thee a gift in time,  
  
I couldn't take it, It's no longer mine.  
  
I've left it with you, for it is yours,  
  
Golden gleam from glazed & darkened door.  
  
Empty now; the window calls,  
  
No second thoughts to silent scuff falls))  
  
A wave of regret and sadness filled her as she blew at the edge of the paper and manipulated the air it fell on floating it to the pillow next to him, where it lay folded with a letter on one side.  
  
{{The silent moon's mirror is breaking, Cassandre…*}}  
  
SpellSong was out the window and across the top of the house which mirrored that of the one she and he had shared before Patric's voice had filled her head inside the torrent of emotions which scalded her heart in burn pain and sear freeze. She swallowed concentrating on not letting it happen while the area in front of her eyes blurred with the hot tears she said she wouldn't let come. His voice and the name…..that game from so long ago…..crept a bittersweet and very cracked smile to her lips as she kept skipping from house to house top, faster and faster away from the place she left her everything in.  
  
She kept going till she stopped at the solitary roof, her eyes having already glanced down to accept what her sense already knew. He was there. He was standing there in the middle where her car should have been, a Limo waiting behind him by 5 or ten feet, starring up at her, as if he'd been expecting her.  
  
And he had, he was the only 1st of the two people who could know her that well.   
  
Casse made her way down quietly to the front of him, just starring at him the whole way. He -her brother- was standing there, still 2 or 3 inches taller than her, with those blue green eyes with both a look of disappointment and of concern, for as much as she could tell with the blurring vision she had, going more on her senses than them right now. He started walking to her and she to him, meeting in the middle.  
  
"Tsuki…" his voice called softly in Japanese, it was nice, she hadn't heard it in so many years, no with her ears atleast. Rich and soft as she looked at him still coming closer as he spoke varied language as he went.  
  
"…you shouldn't have. You could always go back, Little Luna."  
  
While the voice soothed her it still couldn't sooth the ache inside her chest that was one hurt The Perfecting could not heal. It couldn't heal her heart.  
  
"Patty-Patch, shut up!" she said, but all that it came out was as a broken and bare whisper of words as her face fell lightly against the fabric, he wasn't doing anything but letting her cry as the tears exploded with an almost sudden flurry like a damn had opened inside her, inside his arms.  
  
"Fuck it! Damn you, Jen-ari! Damn you! You got it off better than us! Why didn't you take us with you????? Why???"  
  
Casse didn't mean any of it, and he knew she didn't, but the name alone said invoked a calmed presence around them that both felt; they *always* felt her. Even when no one believed them, they knew she'd always be apart of them. Partially he was glad to see his sister, it's been 6 years sine he'd seen her face as she left them all, and for her it'd been 12 years since she'd laid eyes on the last link to her sanity at points, and yet she looked only perhaps a year older than when she'd started out.  
  
Funny how time went the though sparkled her thoughts as her tears soaked his grey lapel and he took her to the Limo slowly. He didn't care about much at the second as the valet nodded to him and opened the door, he picked her up lightly holding her close a second before setting her down and looking into her eyes.  
  
SpellSong looked oddly pale, and to say that you had to have understood she always looked pale as fresh snow with a blue tint naturally; but now she looked positively palid. She looked like someone had stolen the flame that lit her life and her eyes, as if perhaps someone had stolen across her grave. Her eyes had become such a light blue color, and so openly clear and unclouded it looked like she might not even have anything but a dot pupil. She didn't move except where he moved her, as she seemed to have almost completely stopped as the tears dried up with a sudden halt, as did any sound she had been making.  
  
She emptily held on to him, something she had let go of and yet never let go of, and was letting go of something she couldn't help but be torn in two to let go; but she couldn't help it. So she did, what she had in the past, she pushed it away, locked it up.  
  
Damn the, loveable, adorable, beautiful X-men she'd left…...damn all the X-men……..they were always the ones to break her heart, the forming walls around her heart whispered in "perfected" silence. 


	6. F6 Within The Ringer

"Within the Ringer"   
  
(3 1/2 years prior to last FlashBack)   
  
Casse frowned slightly, as she worked with a thin pin on her wristlets. She   
  
didn't hate it here, but she didn't like it at all much either. The first   
  
morning, 6 months ago, still rung in her head.   
  
-------------   
  
"No you're wrong. That's not her. She's been dead for like two whole years and besides she's too young. It's not her."   
  
"The femme's been reported dead as many times as the seasons change. I won't believe she's dead till her heads on a pike and her bodies pieces are scattered to de winds before my very eyes."   
  
"She's weak as a kitten, couldn't do no harm, 'sides she'd barely even breathing."   
  
"I wouldn't stand by those words, she tends to slit the throats of those who even attempt to help h-"   
  
"SHOO!!!!" a deep third voice bellowed and the sounds of the two scurried away. It was a woman's voice. The door creaked to the left of the bed where the woman lay breathing softly, as if the faintest movement would spring a   
  
trap on her and yet completely relaxed at the same time. She'd been playing possum a good maybe 40 minutes, maybe even an hour by now.   
  
There was a shuffling of objects, louder to her ears than she had heard in years, and it only help to remind her leg hurt like hell. Broken in two places. Sometimes having hollow bones was proving a too dangerous medical   
  
peculiarity. She remained partially worried about where she was as she tried to block out the constant throb of pain, knowing it would take a day or two or three, for she realized since she'd awoken one thing with crystal clarity.   
  
Her powers were back, and it hit her almost with a wave of sorrow; because she didn't want them, need them, even wish for them to ever come back. How'd she gotten here? Where was Master Yido? Even as groggy as she felt, she tell that simple reason of her powers for one thing atleast alone. Out of the tiny crack of between long fringed black eye lashes she could see the shimmer of blue which surrounded the cheek of her face glaring at her ominously, knowing the rest of her glowed, too.   
  
"Ah'm not waiten' all day. You alive and 'wake over there, so's ya ain't got no choice 'bout eatin' now, cause nobody, I mean, nobody died under mah watch."   
  
The bed indentured as the woman sat down, and gravity pulled Casse lightly as the bed sunk on one edge. Casse was prepared to wince at the pain of movement but all she felt was the soft tickle of The Perfection, and she let out an incredibly light sigh, audible though for she hadn't practiced being silent in years, not in that way atleast.   
  
"Ah ain't lost me no body an' ah I don' plan to start with you, chil'"   
  
Casse glanced at her slightly, taking in her feature. A soft and yet rugged expression on the woman's face, but her eyes, her eyes which twinkled with life, were what drew Casse's attention to her, like a child's suddenly spawned curiosity.   
  
--------------   
  
"Riven? Riven?" The voice called from the door, but she hadn't looked up yet thinking.   
  
"Casse?" She looked up slightly towards the door, no one but the healer knew her name, and him. She frowned as she looked at him. He'd been here the first month only to turn around and leave again. It had been odd. Things had   
  
been odd between she and he, even though they had talked but three times.   
  
It was as if something just took over her when she was near him. It was unsettling, in a terrible way, especially when she could even seem to keep her life so perfectly in order. Having come from Old Japan to 4 years before she even got knocked back into it on accident had a bad enough effect on her. Everyone here though she was still Riven, there was no existence as Tandy, or way to prove it to the three people she mentioned it to.   
  
He was walking towards her quietly, and she wondered if it was just a twist of fate that her heart leapt into her throughout and her hand slipped crashing the pin into another section of her wristlet, which made her glower   
  
at her wrist when she looked at it. Maybe if she could forget that day in town and that kiss……oooh, that kiss, that kiss that dizzied her world and made her forget everything…..maybe things could be okay.   
  
He kneeled leaned down slightly by her where she'd gone back to working on her left wristlet silently.   
  
"You can't ignore me forever," he said and his voice was smooth and accented to the fact a chill ran down her spine, almost putting her too on edge.   
  
"Who says I'm ignoring you? Who ever said I had the time for you even?" Casse said with a bite to her words as she concentrated on the wristlet, relaxing she'd never get any work done like this, her finger trembled at rate only she could feel and see and it was going to ruin her wristlet is she broke any more connections. And she did so love her wristlets, so she looked up.   
  
Just in time to see his hand coming at her face, which almost made her jump; and often from someone always on the defensive again. She didn't move though as his fingers touched her cheek softly, and she almost winced. She was a   
  
poster child for pain and suffering, but kindness, even love, those were like foreign ideas to her. They were things that made people weak and sentimental and soft.   
  
His fingers traced the side of her cheek lightly as she finally looked up to meet his eyes, only aware of his touch, and her heart pounding and him being so close.   
  
"You can't lie to me," he said softly, as he took one of her hands pulling her up, "Besides I know dos expression's too well. I remember 'em all from when I taught you to ride."   
  
But it was like something snapped inside her, within the worry, the panic of emotions racing through her she couldn't control, when his lips touched her again. It was the only thing she could do, the only thing at the touch she   
  
didn't want to do. She shoved him backwards only about half a foot.   
  
"STOP! Don't touch me! Get away from me! Go! Get! Go away!"   
  
Her powers only still integrating back into her system and into her mind, with little use since she'd awoke, seemed to jump alive suddenly within the volumized emotional outburst she had, and it effected him. He looked shocked, like he was about to say something; then trapped. And suddenly he just fainted completely on the floor.   
  
Casse finger and hand covered her mouth partially in shock or surprise. What happened? Had she done that? She kneeled down by him checking his pulse. Still alive and fine, but what had she done? Her fingers rubbed lightly over   
  
her throat as she was more shocked and scared than anything at the second and she was almost determined not to move until he either died there or woke up, whichever came first. 


	7. F7 Please Don't Say You Care

"Please, Don't Say You Care"  
  
SpellSong  
  
Casse stood in the parking lot silently. She knew beyond a doubt he was in there. He wasn't defensive yet, but she was sure if of anything at this second, he knew she was here, too. The glass hit the table, as he finished his drink, and a match struck as she opened the door to the smokey bar. At the second sound a shiver ran through her form lightly that she couldn't help.  
  
That was something that would never leave her her mind whispered just like that smile. That look on her face before death laid claimed to her, the one that haunted Casse silently forever. The one she could never forget in a million years.  
  
Their eyes met across the smokey air, like they'd been expecting each other, but neither moved at first. Casse glanced away to the jukebox as the words played lightly, and she felt like she was trapped in a dream somewhere within the impossible.  
  
"You only see want your eyes want to see……How can life be what you want it to be….you're frozen….when your heart's not open"  
  
She looked back up at him; his eyes hadn't moved. It was almost as if he was taking the measure of her, and once again she felt like she might have been eight years old and coming from playing or getting taught to ride the motorcycle. She felt a little flustered and lost, maybe even a bit scared. Why? Because he was him. She couldn't change how she felt about him, he was in her heart. He had been since before she could remember.  
  
None of the battles could change that.  
  
Casse though for a second, she should have dressed nicer. She looked like a tamp, but then half the superhero costumes at some points covered less. She wasn't a super hero part of her quipped with a racing speed and ice she almost winced as she reached the a few barstools away from him. She bit her bottom lip, she wondered if hasty retreat was the best plan of action for this time.  
  
But he didn't move but to look up to the bar tender and order two more drinks, one him and for her, before he looked back as she slid, silent on to a bar stool, feeling like she almost couldn't breath. It's been years, they'd seen each other off and on, but not on common ground, not like this. This was actually civil and even; and it left them both at odds.  
  
"You've grown up a lot."  
  
Casse was almost startled to hear his voice and she swallowed slightly, looking at her fingers on the edge of the counter, nodding softly at his words. It'd been longer for her than him. To him it's been only five years since a real conversation, to her it seemed so much longer and in fact it had been by atleast double that and some. They sat in silence until the drinks were plunked down in front of them.  
  
She wrinkled her nose slightly, an oddly open and expressive thing for a person who kept all emotional reactions in check. She wasn't much for alcohol, it effected her like medicine did, like daggers inside her veins. She only drank when she wanted to hurt, or wanted to get lost. She took a sip slowly, before commenting still not looking up.  
  
"It's been a while… the past doesn't let you grow down."  
  
No matter how much you wish it would let you, she whispered softly inside. I was happy. You were, too. I remember it. She was happy, too. She was still with us, smiling and laughing and making us want to live.   
  
"Jr. wanted me to tell you he said" but his voice cut off to a low mumble so soft she couldn't hear him and she was confused a second and looked up at him. Maybe it was the second when they're eyes caught again and for both of them being so close to each other could have turned the clock back to before what happened yesterday fifteen years ago. The day when everything fell apart for some of them.  
  
"Happy Birthday" he said lightly at her curious expression as he went back to his drink.  
  
Casse nodded slightly as she looked down again.   
  
"Thanks."  
  
She was 21 today. For him atleast she was. For this time she was supposed to be. For as much as it would ever matter. She hadn't had a birthday since she was 5. Because nothing was ever the same when it had come to that next birthday. She'd been six and she realized birthdays didn't mean anything when you were burying about 5 people you love on that same day.  
  
"And Steven Ray's been gone a while now, Akiko Tsuki…" his voice stopped at the same time their eyes met again. Her's wild and his almost a threatening deepness. The words had slipped his mouth. Definite, sad, angry, regretful. They were his words and only his words. The ones she wouldn't even late Patric call her. They were the ones that had been hers/his since birth.  
  
Casse tried to put that aside along with the dull ache inside. Steven Ray was missing? Him and his wondrous I'm always here, always going to lend a helping hand and going the distanceness was gone? How…. Odd.  
  
They stayed and conversation dwindled back and forth at the same rate of speed for three or four hours, and as the midnight called for early mornings light to come they both left through the front door and stood outside silently. You could almost tell by the way they stood it was rigid, almost like they were feigning anticipation of the coming moments. The on coming tomorrow that couldn't be stopped.  
  
She closed her eyes telling herself she would go back to those who helped her earlier this month to finish what she started as the smoke wafted past her nose lightly and she looked to the side.  
  
"Take care of yer'self?" his voice was gruff, almost harsh, but she could detect the concern -and the unhidden care- in it.  
  
"I…promise."   
  
He nodded and started walking off, leaving in the dust the morning created in his steps before he got on the motorcycle, and turned it on. The hand behind her back, arm across the back of her waist, parallel to her shoulders clenched tight, digging softly against the skin but not breaking it. The hum of the bike broke the moment as he turned and left one glance in the side mirror the last of these moments.  
  
As Casse fingers dug harder into the sensitive skin of her palm, though she looked the picture of cool, she felt like she might fall apart again. But no tears came, and nothing but a lump raised in her throat as she watched the dust cloud down the road disappear slowly, only the one thing she never said and always wanted to right came silently.  
  
I love you…Daddy. 


	8. F8 Laughing Joker

"I don't like it, Chandy, I don't like it one damn bit," Casse said her eyes fixed on the fireplace still. Quiet annoyed and boredly.  
  
"Chan-dra! Chan-dra, get it right, Riven." The long blonde haired woman chided her from a chair counter hers next to the fire place. She wore a long red gown, which held her tight, leaving no curiosities for any man or woman who glimpsed her. Casse could have cared less about her except her presence was needed. "Can't you get a-"  
  
"Stop it! Both of you!" The voice sounded from across the room at the window. She was a short haired woman, also blonde, with a long flowing cape a great mind that Casse in some aspect would have loved to spend time picking apart in discussion for many reasons.  
  
"Calm, Belle," Casse voice raised slightly in amusement as she flicked another card in the fire place. A soft laugh cantered her next words, too. "Tension rise high, Chandy just needs to calm herself, too. Tension raise and immortals tend to jump even hirer than most of us it seems when they have something to loose."   
  
Chandra bristled at the name and it only made Casse smile widen as she flicked cards steadily at the trashcan in front of her silently. Anyone who was anyone, who knew, knew of, or even about Riven, would know wherever she ended up she'd been in the high, of the bad or the good however and whoever was looking at would depend which, but always among those of power.  
  
"Especially when she herself doubts the courier."  
  
Belle, not Chandra, though reacted to those words. Her own words of venom and of ice like each in the room could be if they chose. "Just like you, Riven?"  
  
"I could care less for your people, Belle. They mean nothing to me at all, less than nothing. I care the same for your courier. I don't care if he's the best of the best or the worst of the worst. I shall think the same of him always."  
  
"He is the best." Chandra stated simply looking up from her drink.  
  
"He is a pawn in a game run by players of the highest accord, Chan-dra" Casse said harshly, accosting the pronunciation even, "And unless he is playing you then he is a nobody and a nothing."  
  
They both stayed silent till Chandra repeated her words again. Casse lacked response this time turning the next card over and clicking it. She watched the joker's face laughing at her all the way to the fire. Laughing at her. Warning her. A warning she'd never realize in a fire that would consumer her fully. One she would fight, and would surrender to.  
  
One day, but for now she was only the string on a bomb, and the match was coming closer and closer. It had coming calling for her without notice or warning at all.  
  
***************  
  
true, in some it would become most annoying in those that appease and tantalize it 'tis a grand thing to watch the fluster of those who enjoy such a mystery 


	9. F9 Pot and Kettle Diatribe

"Is it so? I'm sure I never even noticed with how busy I am and all," Casse said quietly as her eyes focused on a silver-white barrette with her small tiny silver pin, a magnifying glass above it helping her to work. So she plinked along reverently trying to ignore his ever-present presence of the moment.   
  
"Ye're a bad liar."  
  
Casse raised a delicate eyebrow though she didn't look up till a second at him pulling the pin away from her Silver Post. She glanced at with an expression that came out exactly how she wanted it, innocently sweet and teasing curios, her voice soft as a breeze.  
  
"'Tis the pot calling the kettle black?"  
  
She laughed softly as she watched his reaction even his eyes alone as she leaned back in the chair a second still holding the other things. "So, tell me then, what did you come for, besides to show dismay for my attempts of deceit? I have no doubt it was not for a goodbye."  
  
"It's a private jet, chere. Ya've got nothing holdin' ya' here, ya' could go home, to friend and fam-"  
  
Her eyes darkened almost too suddenly to a shade of blue near midnight, a shocking thing to see when they had been a light airy almost cyan seconds ago now. They narrowed slowly on him, almost like a cat ready to pounce, full of anger or hate, her voice reflecting it evenly.  
  
"That is not my home, and none of them is friend or family. Not now, not ever."  
  
She didn't even glance at him as she distracted herself from letting the consequence of her creeping temper come to view at the moment.  
  
"So not there, the heart knows where de home is, so where would ye go???"  
  
Casse shrugged slightly, an oddly graceful movement from a seemingly almost wounded creature from the way the light reflected in her eyes at the second.  
  
"I don't have a heart. I seem to remember a bomb tore it apart, and then time and the wind stole those few pieces from me."  
  
"Quite cynical view, almost like your dad, what happened to your de little dreamer ye're mother raised, Casse? What happened to dat little girl who watched de stars saying she had great places to see and great things to do-"  
  
He didn't finish as the pin in Casse's hand had sliced straight into the magnifying glass during his words, too much like a knife through butter, thought still a third away from the butterfly under it. He'd touched it, the one subject that cut to the heart of it all. Slowly, like pond ice with too much weight on it, cracks went out from the center where her pin still rested, chasing faster till it reached the end and then it exploded.  
  
Shard of magnifying glass ricocheted onto the skin uncover on her upper torso and her lower arms, and she looked at it a second almost detachedly as small spots of red appeared against her skin as she looked up at him. Her eyes were dangerous. Far more dangerous than any of her past opponents had ever seen, as this was something that left it's cut's in her heart. One that had teeth and that had sunk them in to never remove them from her. Her voice came out rigidly icy as she thought only a bare second on his words.  
  
"She, like all good frost bitten flowers and children, conceded and then did die. And it's not Casse, she is long gone. You have no permission."   
  
"Ye're mother named ya' it so the world would call ya' it. Seems a likely enough permission, chere."  
  
"Casse is gone…they've given me another title here even. No longer even Riven, it's SpellSong…" she seemed wistful a second before her expression tightened and she looked at him again. "Your plane is leaving soon, so go."  
  
He was quiet silent, remaining still present at the door, as he had turned to go. In some ways he was wiser than, but as he turned towards her again, she realized in the same perspective he was also just like the rest of them. Her eyes regard him a second longer.  
  
"A problem, Mr. Lebeau? Does it trouble you to leave a person you still view as a child helpless to those who made you what you are today?"  
  
He didn't wince, but she noted a change beyond almost recognition a second in his expression as if half in half she could have been right and in other she was completely wrong as he stayed there silent almost in defiance of her own words.  
  
"Worried, perhaps?"  
  
"Chere, would be a straight out lie ta say, as one of de nonexistent friends and family of your past, dat after 4 years of you without a trace, not knowing if your were dead or out making-"  
  
"Making a living by any means possible?" she said with a cat like smirk.  
  
"Dat's not de point, Casse." For some fact he must have been bewildered she thought for such thoughts probably ran through his head to what happened to bring this person who sat before him for the courageously brave and intently curios gentle, thrill seeking nine year old he'd taught to ride a motorcycle on the front steps against her father's wishes.  
  
"Of course it's the point. I am out here and I am living, and you with your doubts and your fears for me, as someone's -as your friends little helpless lost- child, as someone I haven't been in ages, wish me to push aside, so I can go running back to a place I hate. Hate. Hate, you hear me?"  
  
"Come to Paris." He said simply -perhaps he had been and hadn't been listening all at one- and she stared at him as if he might have been insane. The others would kill her, and for a second as she looked up at him, she began to wonder if that mattered. 


	10. F10 And so Goes Heart Breakand HeartAche

"And So Goes Heart Break…and HeartAche"  
  
Who: Two NPC's  
  
When: FlashBack or FlashForward (depends whom you're asking), picks up after "Escape From the Ringer"  
  
Her cloudy gray-blue eyes watched the sky silently from her perch on the edge of the roof. The sun had set a blaze across the sky and was now arching it's way halfway through another day. Just one more day in the endless repetitive cycle it would cast on life. On her life.  
  
Her heart was the million shards of a broken mirror, lying on the ground, proposing it's self to be ignored, and forgotten. But she couldn't. That was like telling the sun not to fall, so the Empress Moon would not take her place in the sky, and be inspiration, be savior to all those who were creature of the night, damned and forgotten by life.  
  
A sigh of multicolored emotion left her lips, as she pulled her knees to her chest under the large shirt, and let the emotions flood her again, like an off and on switch. The rough fabric felt odd against her skin. It wasn't silk or leather or velvet. It was some poly-cotton blend she would have been used to if this had been her path in life. Well, this and spandex.  
  
He'd come, if she was important, wouldn't he? He said he loved her. Understood her like no one ever tried to or did, and that nothing she said or did could turn his heart. That she didn't have to fear him, fear loving him. He'd come then wouldn't he? He'd know where to find her. He had always known how to find her!!!!  
  
"As much as any of us could find you."  
  
Casse looked up to meet a familiar face, walking along the main tiles on the roof behind her. He must had looked outrageous, though no more than she. Atleast he had decent clothing, right? He was wearing an incredibly light  
  
gray suite, perfect blend of white and black it seemed, with a perfect red rose in the lapel. It almost made her smile, but the water beginning to cloud her eyes stopped it as she looked away and clenched her eyes closed, refusing to cry and balled her fists.  
  
She'd failed him before, just like her lover. Failed him so many times, in so many-  
  
"Stop torturing yourself, chiisai tsuki."  
  
A shuddering breath racked her chest and was strangled in her throat, as tears started a new, only helping the clawing inside her heart. She sniffled and leaned into her arms not responding to his words. It wasn't long before  
  
she felt the arms wrap around her shoulders and pull her back into the body behind her. She moved willingly, less strength of action that a new born kitten, loosing herself again.  
  
~*~*~  
  
The day faded away in someway, but she never realized it till her eyelashes flickered and she stirred. A soft mumble left her lips, only a sound, but the person holding her shifted, and brushed her loose hair from her face.  
  
"You're awake?"  
  
She blinked a few times, trying to piece it back together as she looked up to find stars and a bright moon in the sky, but looking back into his face she couldn't help but smile at him, even as tears swelled again. His hand  
  
raised to her cheek, as it dried away the first tear to fall from her eyes, blue as a newborn child's. Blue as the ones that haunted his dreams nightly.   
  
"Shhhh. It's okay, Cassidy-Angel."  
  
Casse laughed barely as she moved to sit, realizing she still only had one shirt on and a pair of black thong underwear, all in a fabric she didn't like, on. Reaching up to wipe away her own second and third tear, she nodded. Then she leaned forward and hugged him, glad for the simple acceptance of everything. Glad to find her savior again, even as more tears fell.  
  
They weren't for hate, or hurt, nor pain anymore. It was about love, all of the love.  
  
They stayed in each other's arms for hours longer into the night, just holding each other, denying the world any interruption from call of any kind, combadge, mental statement, or the intercom. They were together, and they completed things together. After a while, they settled again. Him sitting on the side edge and her still curled into his lap, with her head on his shoulder.  
  
"The moon still looks the same as it did," she said softly, letting her eyes trace the star ways, as a strand of her long black hair was twisted between her fingers.  
  
"Aye." He replied quiet as was possible with his baritone, leaning down to place a kiss on her forward looking at her. "She does."  
  
Casse grinned silently and just snuggled into his arms closer, and was rewarded with a hug of warmth she hadn't felt in years, because no one could hug her like he could. No one could hug every part of her at once, inside  
  
and out.  
  
"So, what was this time? SpellSong?"  
  
Casse stiffened and shook her head immediately. That names was - had been hers for almost a year, only because he nicknamed her it. "No." Her voice was clouded but chilly. "No, no."  
  
"Riven, again?"  
  
She shook her head against the fabric of his shoulder. Riven was long gone. She was a different person, no and then. "No."  
  
"Going for a no codename years?" He asked a chuckle touching his voice, so warm and close to her ear, before placing another kiss against her temple. His joy was an out pouring to have her close to him again, and hers was  
  
mirrored very faintly with the pain.  
  
"No….don't have anything but heart ache, now." Casse said quiet whisper and he pulled her close, held her close, even though she couldn't get in closer. Trying to shoosh her as she repeated quietly. "Just heart ache….only heart  
  
ache. Maybe HeartAche."  
  
"Heart Ache." She shivered, having turned the word over in her mouth and mine and tired to cuddle closer into his arms and his jacket, leaning her forehead against his neck, trying to cast the face that evaded her mind from  
  
her memory. To cast away his kisses or caresses. No one understood that.  
  
"I love you, Casse."  
  
The voice fell over her gently, like a trickle of water. He looked up at the sky and she knew he was sad, happy and angry all at once. Her eyes followed the line of his jaw bone unable to see up any further than the side of his  
  
chin. She leaned up partly and placed a kiss in the hollow of his throat with a chaste and yet somehow overwhelmingly intimate touch and nodded, wrapping her arms back around her shoulders and curling up a little more into his shivering, but not because of the night.  
  
"I love you, too, Patty-Patch." 


	11. F11 An Odd Homecoming

Shifting uncomfortably as another morning was upon her, she moved on the stool. It was an odd and weird experience to be sitting on a stool in the middle of these people who hadn't figured out she was here yet, eating a bowl of cereal in the same shirt and little to no other clothing, from yesterday still. Atleast her two piece ensemble had become a three piece now. She was in a pair of socks, too, now.  
  
Casse looked towards the door hearing the step. She withdrew into herself a moment listening. Soft, gentle steps, not be mistaken for dainty. Strong in decision and wispy as if she was barely touching the ground, as if she belonged elsewhere than the ground. The kitchen room door swung opened and stayed. She didn't look out, know the woman was shocked enough by the fact she hadn't moved in anymore yet.  
  
"Casse?!?!?"  
  
She replied drolly before having another spoonful of cereal. She set her spoon down and nodded toward a teakettle on the stove, as if stating not to be disturbed. "It's over there, about to reach a boil."  
  
The moment after her sentence ended, the kettle whistled. She knew the woman's dark face was probably conflict in confusion, curiosity and, whether Casse wanted to admit it or not, concern. It was one the reasons she didn't look back. Her ears followed the sounds of the steps the woman took around the kitchen. To the cup, then the tea bag -box of Orange if she wasn't wrong- and the then to pour the water.  
  
She stood there, watching her, stirring her tea, the edges of the spoon clinking very loudly to Casse's ears even though she knew it was almost a completely silent sound. Casse didn't look up though. She knew what was set in that dark face, behind those beautiful silver blue eyes. The wondered of all the years since she'd left as a teenager. The love for her mother, that she'd always had, that had always kept her watching over Casse once she was gone.   
  
There were years between them. She'd been her mothers angel and become the seedy "villain" type her mother had fought and…hated. Hated. She was betting the woman was wondering why she'd come back -suspicious, wary and or over-joyed-. Taking a silent breath in between her teeth as she looked at the empty bowl of cereal she stood up from the stool casting her eyes over to the African woman and spoke as if she'd never said anything earlier.  
  
"Morning, Weather Witch. How are you?"  
  
She moved a second later to the sink and began to wash her dishes, surprised when the hinge for the hot water didn't squeak as it had. Someone would have fixed it of course eventually. Stupid girl.   
  
"Tired." The answer was simple-confusing-unhelpful, crisp, making Casse second guess if there was knowledge around here that already knew she was here. Patric had promised to say nothing. "You?"  
  
Casse opened the dishwasher and slipped her things in before turning back to Storm. Her black hair swished around her in her movements, being freed for once of all the hard and exotic styles. Loopy loose curls and waves to a few inches beneath her bottom, which clung to the shirt edge where it hung down barely covering her underwear. Her eyes were tired, more from too much crying than from the lack of sleep she was having. She was used to that.  
  
"I don't know." Another simple-confusing-unhelpful answer. She shrugged as if the state of it didn't bother her. It did though very much. She wasn't used to not understanding herself. She flipped subject and tried to pull back on her wince when she realized what was coming out of her mouth, sad, sultry and sarcastic.  
  
"Where's father?"  
  
The woman's expression changed and Casse felt her heart involuntarily sunk lower, even as she pressed her lips together knowingly and tried not to let her expression show her disappointment. "He's gone on a trip. He would have come had he known-"  
  
"But he doesn't. And he won't," Casse said harshly, her words saying EXCUSE loudly, as she went to walk past the woman towards the door. The movement of her arm made her remember the way she'd pat her head and stroke her hair when she small. She wasn't sure if she was coming out to stop her or touch her. She wasn't ready for anyone but Patric to touch her again.  
  
She stopped short, whirling around, Storm's hand half a foot from her shoulder in mid air. "Don't."  
  
Casse moved away towards the door, but turned back again to she the woman's shocked and pitiful expression. Pity for her? Bah. No one cared here. Patric cares, inside chided. "I remember a long time ago when I was barely old enough to ask anything serious and I got angry being told, 'Don't ask a question unless ready to hear the answer'. I don't have any of those anymore, because I don't have anything left to loose."  
  
"What happened to you?" The silver-blue eyes, riddled with confusion, and unbidden horror, bore holes into her, as if she were still the child on her lap, or on her back riding the air currents for giggles.  
  
She moved her arms to cross over the poly-cotton T-shirt at her waist, causing the thing to rise more. Her blue eyes were a dark midnight almost, reflecting many pains and angers, but her voice was oddly gentle. "Your Cajun friend asked me that and, silly me, I told him. Take your own advice, 'Ro."  
  
"You're not ready for that answer. No one is." She stopped a moment and then let loose her arms again, and said even quieter even though it was at a volume of normal hearing and able to register. "Least of all me."  
  
With that Casse turned and left the kitchen, leaving the woman and her teacup to peace, knowing she'd broken any chance of peace for her this morning already. She hated this place. Hated the feelings it stirred in her. So many memories and it wasn't even West Chester. Why couldn't everyone of the stupid Legion of the Damned just rip her heart out and just throw it away all at once?   
  
She walked into a side room quietly, her socks making only the faintest scuffing to her socks on the ground. Looking up her eyes scanned the room. For how many years had past, it seemed the same. The murals had been changed, but the bookcases were still filled. She walked to the case by the window, not surprised to see what she was looking for was still in the same place, or that their were many more.  
  
Running her fingers along the dates, she stopped tapping her finger on one.   
  
Stop!!!! Something inside her screamed. This will only make it worse!!!!  
  
"Aren't you a little chilly, Miss?"  
  
Casse's lips formed the oddest grin as she looked down at herself. Dark blue loose T-shirt that came down trying to attempt to cover her black bikini-string thong underwear -and sorely loosing the battle if she moved at all-, and then a pair of white men's socks, with a blue line across the toes and over the heel, scrunched down around her ankles. Letting her hand fall from the leather bound binder she looked over her shoulder at the blue ball that hung from a bar near the ceiling grabbing a book with the one free hand.  
  
"No, Henry. I don't cold very easily."  
  
She watched his face change as he realized who she was. He had only been being polite. He'd thought she was one of the many mirad aged student body here, who, of course, we're not allowed to run around in their underwear or anything of that sort. She watched his hand move to a badge on the band of a pair on something that looked like Speedo's to her.   
  
"He already knows I'm here. And many others now if Ororo left the kitchen after our discussion minutes ago," Casse nodded to his book, trying to get over the way everyone looked like it was something miraculous. It wasn't like she came back from the dead. Well, not this time, atleast. "What'd you come for?"  
  
"A veritable wealth of words and learning. Advanced Astrophysics, Third year."  
  
"For a student?" she asked as he adjusted his crimson framed glasses still hanging upside down, moving his feet in the direction of the door, even though his eye hadn't come off her yet. Something about him did seem the same. He looked like he wanted to make some statement or joke, but couldn't. It was understandable, and terrible to feel. She waved her hand to the door, turning back to the bound book. "Go on, someone's probably waiting on you. I'm busy now, too."  
  
Casse hand went back to the same book and she pulled out, though her mind was on the fuzzy beast hanging from the ceiling. He stayed unmoving for about half a minute just watching her, flipped down and then left the room. Legion of the Damned. She frowned and shook her head as she flipped open the book as she started flipping pages looking for it.   
  
Walking to a couch she found it. It had always been her favorite when she was little. Sitting down, she crossed one leg under the other on the couch and set the book on her lap. Her eyes softened in color looking over the picture. She never liked photo albums much at all, too many real people that were gone, smiling at you in them. Not that this was any different, but it just was.   
  
It had taken two days after they'd been born. There were three adults in the picture where it was set out in the garden. The woman in the middle was sitting on a bench with rose petals twined in her hair smiling so bright with happiness and life, and to her sides were what Casse supposed were the two most important. Her husband, and the Professor, who both looked so full of pride.   
  
Each of them held a small child two days old in their arms. Her father also had a three-year-old Steven Ray on his shoulders making an impish expression at the camera, with his thumb to his nose and his fingers flared.   
  
"Casse?"  
  
"In here." Casse replied, a finger, or more aptly the tip of a silver-blue nail, lay gently in a stroke across the side of her mothers face and cheek. So beautiful. Passionate. Fiery.  
  
"What are doing, Little Luna?" He asked slipping on to the couch next to her as she offered him the book. She watched the very lightest smile line his lips, though his eyes clouded with concern for her. He put an arm around and patted her back gently. "It's still missing Jr."  
  
"But it has Jennifer." She nodded as she took the book back, looking at it quietly before whispering. "And mother."  
  
He put a hand out to close the book gently, her hand moving out of the way as if she'd already known what he was going to do. "Can I ask you something?"  
  
"Of course," she replied laying a hand over his. She had to admit even to herself, whenever he was near the pain wasn't as bad.  
  
"Do you believe in angels?"  
  
"Angels? You mean flutter people with wings and these holier-than-thou attitude like the god forsaken catholic church has written?"   
  
Casse choked on a laugh suddenly, as she rolled her eyes partly, slipping the book on his lap and standing. The smile of pure amusement than covered her lips, was her only cover giving away the fact she was about to break into peals of laughter.   
  
She stopped slowly as soon as she could breath normally again and leaned down by him since he still looked serious. Crouching down, taking his hand, and cupping it into her two, she looked up at him. She lost all her problems for his. She always did.   
  
"What's bothering you, my sweet Gray King?"  
  
"I want to show you something."  
  
Five minutes later she was waiting for him to unlock four locks on a large pure wood door, with an intrigued expression.   
  
"In your gallery? How many new additions?"  
  
As key clinked, and locks when clank, and a chain made noise inside the door, he replied. "Since you saw last many, but only one specific one. It's only been here a short while now."  
  
The door opened and her held his hand out offering to let her go first, his stunningly sharp blue-green eyes following her warily. She walked in taking in the portraits across from the door. Sunflowers, blue skies. Houses, people, swirls and alternates. Walking past many in the large hall, she continued to scan them. An Indian woman, dark gothic pictures.   
  
Suddenly she stopped stone still cold staring at the portrait now hung on the 'new' stand area. It was hung against the wall. It had to be something like eight feet tall and four feet wide.  
  
"W-" her words failed her as her eyes, a pale silver-blue, fled to the picture piece by piece, corner by corner and color by color. "When? Why?"  
  
He slipped up behind her setting his hand on her shoulders even over her unbound wild black hair. "Seven days ago. It wasn't even what I had planned. It appeared in a dream and the next thing I knew I woke up in here with it painted across it, barely remembering the magnitude that had forced it out. It made me pass out once I was done. It surprised me-- scared me. I had hoped it wouldn't find you the same….that you might be able to explain. Now we're both left with it."  
  
Casse reached up one hand across her chest to lay it on his hand over her shoulder. The picture was sending shivers through her spine. She wanted to look a different direction, one of the whimsy paintings, but she couldn't tear her eyes away.   
  
"I - I don't," she whispered, defeated of her breath. "I've never seen…in my life entire life. Never."  
  
He lightly squeezed her shoulders and tried to move her, but it was, as he knew. If she didn't want to move, nothing on earth would ever tear her away from where she stood or sat. He squeezed her shoulders again, set his chin very gently on the top of her head and all her soft hair and looked at the same thing that Casse couldn't stop looking at.  
  
The painting hung there simply not so much a problem in what it was doing but in what it was portraying.   
  
It was a female angel, with fresh white skin. You could tell that by the fact she was bare foot and you could see her well formed calves. She was standing on steps of what looked like marble, but reflected colors like mother of pearly whites and blacks, silvers and rainbow. The last half-foot at the top of the picture showed a landing at the top of the stairs, where round columns were, and an open doorway far back.  
  
Her wings were the second stunning of things. They were deepest black onyx, wrapped down around her, arms and body, covering everything from her lower legs to just below her mouth. Only the smallest bits of what perhaps was a white cloth skirt or tunic piece showed at the bottom of the wings around the legs. The wings appear to be soft, like the picture was seconds from moving to ruffle the feather or spread them wide in all her glory.  
  
Well, it was until you hit the face. Her face was beautiful, yes, and pale as her legs had been, and her eyes were dark like her hair and wings, but that wasn't what the stunning part was. She was crying. Crying tears of blood down those beautiful alabaster cheeks. And those dark eyes were filled with such a pain and horror that ripped from the portrait and tore at the heart of the person looking at it you were left feeling haunted.   
  
And maybe it wasn't those things that were the most stunning to these two, and maybe it wasn't even the soft glow around the woman of light and darkness, somehow tinged blue. Maybe it was the fact it wasn't a stranger's face they were looking at. It was Casse's. 


	12. F12 First Chance Words

Who: Casse and an extra NPC, or a few  
  
Where: N/A  
  
What: Flashback/forward 12, not in continuity with the last two  
  
"Barakeil? Why are the clouds so white?"  
  
He blinked and looked at her seriously causing her to smile oddly. She looked like a small child might staring up at leaves fall down around them, and he looked like some set to guard duty finding their charge a trial and tribulation, like a teacher over an unwilling student.   
  
"Do you realize you never smile? You are always so serious. It's annoying." Casse said nodding. She simply sighed when he crossed his arms unimpressed. She knew this annoying drill drill. He wasn't here to amuse her. He was here to watch, to guard, to wait for that flickering moment…of chance. Maybe she was as dead as it was whispered she been even when alive, but he had to hope. Everyone got that chance. It was his job to see that.   
  
"What are you?"  
  
His lips formed a scowl and she shook her head. She hated his eyes. This rich copper brown color, it almost seemed golden in the light -and there was so much light up here. They had a way of making her question every second of her life from when she was born till either of the times she'd "died". She hated the fact he wouldn't say anything more. She'd already had silence for more than a month. It was beginning to push past irrational urges.  
  
"I'm not stupid. Stop glaring at me as if I don't know the words coming out my mouth and I do know the answers to my own questions. I know what you are, just not what you are. Some are for hope, love, and blessing. The ones of prayer, and then those of singing, and even millions beyond those few"  
  
"Chance."  
  
Casse blinked. Had he just spoken? Finally? After so long? Or had she just imagined it? Maybe was imagining this whole place. No. She couldn't imagine that voice. She'd never heard a voice like that in all her…travels.   
  
It was like a warm tumble of water, coursing her skin, lighting it slowly with the lick of a flame of fire. It was rugged and so simple and open, she remembered again that of course it couldn't be a dream. No one human could imagine him and certainly not this place. This was the stuff of legends, and of course a place she'd been sentence to be damned for her crimes against humanity and mirad other races.   
  
"What kinda of chance?" 


	13. F13 Do I Dare Dream?

Who: Casse  
  
Where: A Flashback/Forward  
  
I have a dream where I close my eyes I see my mother.   
  
She has ribbons of beautiful black hair flying behind her as she leaps with grace into a spin of calisthenics that even Olympic gymnasts would envy. Her eyes are darker than the night, darker yet than the substance in your own veins. So dark you'd almost forget that her Greek face had once beholden such deep midnight blues.   
  
She takes my hand, and begins to teach me, make me realize like she, that you can live without some. That you need to train angry tendencies. Begins to teach me, to train me as she'd never shown the X-Men before. She's never trusted anyone…save daddy…so why does she reach out to me? I think.  
  
Her eyes share my pain. Share my heart break….for my lost parent.  
  
This is when I realize she's not my mother. Not my mother…and the image begins to change. Her eyes and hair brighten, changing colors, her skin loosing the olive shine and darkening only a half shade.   
  
This is my real mother.   
  
The most beautiful angel among these mortals who grace my life. She's brighter than the dawn sky. Brighter than hope, or love, or the sun that lights each day, though she might be the embodiment of the strengths of each.   
  
Her laughter is one the softest, simplest gifts she gives us - gives me. It washes over me like the warmth of a million sunny days, making me smile and laugh with her, and the wind fills with rose petals and the heat of love.   
  
She's above me in the air reaching her hands out. This goddess of bright beauty and grace, and as my hands touch hers. So small. I'm must be young. And as our fingers touch, our eyes never leaving each other, the scene's behind us change. A bomb falls, but doesn't change us.   
  
Tears leave my eyes because I know this is only a dream. I have the whole time. I just can't allow myself to know. To let go of her before time will make me.   
  
It's only a dream.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Casse's eyes open, as she yawned and stretched her neck towards her right shoulder like a cat, looking up find dark eyes watching her. She fuzzily wonders how him being awake didn't wake her, no moving and awake didn't wake her, but the thoughts are drown out by her systems loud complaints and the bright green-yellow eyes that watch her in this pure and total darkness.  
  
She wasn't sure what the thoughts behinds his eyes were, behind that aggressive, feline look that held his eyes like glowing orbs. Didn't know if they were the same ones that tarried at the edge of her mind. That this had all been a mistake. That getting drunk on her mothers death anniversary and running into him, falling into bed with him had been one large loss of control on her spiral downward after running from Patric, after that scene with her father again.   
  
And more especially because of their history.   
  
Casse startled as one of his fingers began to trace slowly down the line of her jawbone. She hadn't even seen his arm move, or felt the air move away as it came close to her. His face lowered to hers, she could only tell because his eyes moved in the darkness. She felt his lips, and absent-mindedly ignored the soft feeling of hair around them, as she found herself lost in the kiss that followed.   
  
~*~*~   
  
Her blue-grey eyes, effected by the weather this time, watched the falling rain like it were some magical endeavor. It was small silver droplets falling from the darkness of heaven. It seemed to match her mood. Arms wrapped around her bare waist watching the rain, looking like a dark fairy drawn my the time of the weather.  
  
Casse has skin that was red and light purple, with small bruises, bite marks and sore skin, muscles that were pained but didn't really bother her. The healing had already begun. It was a normal soreness, like a prick now. It was an exhilarating feeling running through her veins now.   
  
The world of silver here was beautiful. One of her two favorite colors, for the first thing. It was power and a mix of the greatest people inviting you in was n honor.   
  
Having him…  
  
Was she ready to tie herself down to something again? After so long?   
  
Was she ready to take that power and that risk?  
  
no tags/flash thingy 


	14. F14 Exiting the Ring

Who: Casse  
  
Where: Eh…Unnamed Room  
  
When: Flash Forward/Back  
  
A sound tickled her ear, as she realized her chest took slow shallow breaths. What had happened? Her eyes were closed - felt like ten-pound weights attached to each of her eyelids. It felt like thousands of needles were pricking her. The training through instinctual by months, years almost, kept her expression from relaying even an ounce of pain.  
  
Moments flashed in her mind. Parry and thrust of a sword. Dirt and sand and something else were flying into her eyes. The roar of a crowd. A man, feral, and dark, taunting. A cry of pain and the shame that followed the outburst.   
  
Everything stopped in her mind, fading to black. The sounds swirled in her ears, drowning out scant thoughts that tried to form and her nose was suddenly filled with so many scents it was like she could feel the room itself breath. She shuddered and tried to push it all away, curling her form inward. The movement laced with an odd tingling sensation throughout her whole body let her also realize she was lying on a mat with blankets and a pillow.  
  
"You're dead, Casse."  
  
  
  
She stilled completely, fighting against the pain and the odd tingling sensation, but even more fighting to simply open her eyes.   
  
"Good," she grunted, struggling with even breathing. "I'm free," she said half with a small gasp for more air. "Of Valhallara."  
  
The voice laughed and she knew it was male. She wasn't sure how she knew it exactly. Casse was just suddenly sure he was male, later twenties, hadn't bathed and had just finished some strenuous activity. There was a spicy scent and something that smelled like worn leather. She hadn't any idea why she suddenly knew it all, it was just suddenly implanted in her brain like some insane download.   
  
"To walk away unnamed and shamed? To let them think you've gone on to the hall of the gods?"  
  
Casse's thoughts jumped in humiliation and rage, but not before her breath became raspy and then began a horrid cough that jerked her body forward, causing her to curl her shoulders toward her legs from a full laying position. Fire surged through her lungs and spread through all the area around it, forcing her to stay with her forehead on her knees.   
  
"Agh." She stated into the cloth over her legs between the next lapse in coughing not caring that it wasn't the most lady-like sound anyone ever heard, slowly beginning to attempt a sitting position. Everything hurt much to much to care at all about societies justifications right now.   
  
"Here."   
  
She opened her eyes to slits again. Heavy weights tried to stop her, to pull them back closed to the reverie from the stinging pain that felt like tiny needles. It was though enough to focus that she realized she was in a very dark room, somewhere in the back of her head she suddenly knew it was sixteen feet by thirty, dim, the air full of dust, and they the only people in it. Two….people?   
  
Something in her sense told her something was wrong with him. Like a warning. She tired to laugh to herself that it was like "spider-sense" but the remark with the memories was sorer still than amusement it might have caused. Besides this hurt like hell. It was like having some dozen hangovers at once. It was worse than…..No, nothing was worse than the morning after the ship.   
  
Nothing could ever be that bad.  
  
"Drink." The voice said calmer, most adjusted, but a touch impatient this time.   
  
Casse eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness, and on the glass of water being held out to her. She raised a hand, and her finger fitted around the glass before her mouth open, along with her eyes -wide- and the glass fell, water untouched, and shattered on the floor, splashing water and fragments of glass in all directions.   
  
Her eyes, a very bright blue, so pastel it was almost silver-white with a trace of faint blue in it, were locked on hand as her fingers spread wide. Bright blue. Her hand appeared bright blue. It was like looking at some weird science project. A large thundering sound reached her ears and she looked around confused, her eyes landing on him at once.   
  
His face, the dark complexion, even in the dim room, was unmistakable. The noise escalated, faster and faster, like a drum beat.   
  
Her eyes lightened even more, her pupil seeming to become smaller. She suddenly moved agile towards the end of the bed, the thundering sound continuing, and an onslaught causing her to crumple in mid spring, looking like a misshapen tuck-role, that somehow crumpled and fell side ways on the blankets with a moan of pain in retribution of the ill taken action.   
  
"Well, that's settled. You don't want the water."  
  
Casse's teeth were biting into her lip, trying to control the moans of pain that left her prone figure as she moved to sit up, unwilling to be invalid any longer to this man. His eyes seemed to follow her every moment, and his movements to have no sound. Something about him seemed very off to her, but she couldn't tell what. It was just a strong feeling.   
  
"You! You-you-you," she couldn't seem to form another word. It stammered from her lips, chattering a pain through her Jaw, her checks, her throat, her temples scorching. Her mind was playing faster than a tape now, and still not going fast enough to catch up with everything that was happening.   
  
"Me." He nodded simply, without hesitance or a denial. She hated him for it, so purely it struck her like a surprise. Yet somehow she always had. He stood finally, causing her to realize the pad she was on was on the ground. He took steps away into the dark before coming back. "Suppose you start with tell me how you're still alive."  
  
"Right after," Casse rasped, seeing shades of red, pushing herself up along one wall, a wall of fire coursing through her legs as she tried to stand. "I still a spear up your ass."  
  
"You already tried that, m'dear. I believe it ended with you on your back, and with the front end of a poison tipped sword directly in your heart."  
  
"I'm a slow learner," she said, cutting her teeth on her lip due to the pain. Blood flowed lazily into her mouth but she barely felt it as a hand searched out the skin over her heart. Her finger traveled the skin under the make shift tunic that had blood on it in varied places and was tied simply for cover. "I'll take you on again."  
  
"You're not in the shape to take a kitten on," the masculine voice bit back at her. He was telling the truth, but Casse also frequently only ever heard what she wanted to hear. "And you weren't even ready when you walked out there."  
  
Her finger found it. A long scar, scab, line -twisted- without stitches or any bandaging, sore but closed up. She looked down towards where her hand was realizing in a shrink of shock that her whole body was a fuzzy blue color now, highlighting the air around her. Te room began to spin, and she realized somehow the thundering pounding she couldn't get to go away or figure out what was, was suddenly.   
  
It was her heartbeat.   
  
Why was it so loud?   
  
She was aware of arm encircling her, but her sight faded in a pool of blackness, but a voice followed her and she fell lower and lower in the darkness fading only slowly.  
  
"I've been watching you for years, Casse. Since you first arrived. I know everything about you. Parents, family members, the way you like to dress, the food you like to eat, the words you whisper when you sleep…the silent dreams you keep inside. You've got a destiny, and we're going to make it come true."  
  
no tags….flashback 


	15. F15 All In a Days Work

Who: Casse - Riven  
  
When: Winter…..flashback/forward *g* You now the drill by now I hope.   
  
Where: Random Country, and then a Country House  
  
Brave. Be brave. But her hands were shaking so bad now. The deadly silver glinted in the light, and her body shuddering, rattled the bottle in her pocket. Brave. Be brave they told her. It's not that bad. A test. Worthiness. You can do it. Never had to before. Swore for so long never to do this. Think of them as evil. Mother never did this! Her conscious shouted.   
  
SHHHH!!! Shut up! Evil. They're evil. They don't need to be here. Think of it that way. No one will ever miss them. Her foot steps were quiet, but not so quiet that a person listening close could not hear her. She hadn't master their trick of that yet. She was only novice. Only now being tested. Tested to be found worthy. Worthy of being trained.   
  
She wakes up from a dream  
  
Checks the mirror for reality  
  
She says, "Come on girl.   
  
It's all in a days work."  
  
Riven snuck up to the window, fogging it with her short hot breath, like the puff of white air that left her mouth now and then in the cold air. She pulled the vest she had on over the snug black cat suite closer to her, realizing somehow she was freezing. Or was she? Or did she only feel the freezing cold because she thought she was supposed to?  
  
Concentrate!!!! Agenda! Test! Training! She flustered and a bare half frown marred her beautiful face at that thought, but her thought was interrupted by a gaiety of laughter and voices suddenly.  
  
"Pa-pa! Pa-pa! Pa-pa!"  
  
"Look at tree!"  
  
"Mother made cider!"  
  
"Can we open presents yet, Pa-pa?"  
  
Casse found herself straining hard not to stare dumbfoundedly at them. Three children running up to the man in black clothing. A small girl, of perhaps 5, with bouncy spiral golden curls and blue eyes, dressed in Christmas print, and two boys, who appeared to be somewhere around nine and thirteen, with look like his, dark with educated light to them.   
  
Gets herself dress   
  
Just in time  
  
Disappears on the 805  
  
Oh, the whistle blows and   
  
It's all in a days work  
  
Till she calls it day  
  
Evil people didn't have children. They were too busy blowing up things and ruining peoples lives. WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THIS?!?!?! Her lip pressed together, her hand clenching around the handle at the same moment, as she sat silently in that corner by the box window listening to their prattle, thinking that thought over and over.   
  
Evil people didn't have children. They didn't deserve such blessing. They were evil. Evil demanded retribution, not reward. No one would miss the evil in this world.   
  
Woo, Oh, She smiles,  
  
As he glance up from the swim suite issue  
  
Oh, woo, she sighs, as he walks away  
  
Into the down town -  
  
The twilight turned to pure evening and the small ones kissed his cheek and left with squeals of laughter, and promises they wouldn't come check for "Santa" till morning Mother and he came to wake them, or they all piled into the big bed before breakfast.   
  
Philip. Regina. Edmund.   
  
The sounded normal. Up class, snobbish, yes, but normal. It didn't make sense. Her fingers blade on the pommel and her heart shivered with her next thought. She wasn't here to make sense of it, she was here to simple do as they asked and prove herself, which is what she planned to do.   
  
  
  
Riven scaled the wall, opening the lock to the Ceiling light easily, without a sound, though any common neighbor or house member would tell you no one could open the thing without hearing a deafening squeal of the metal so in need of oil now. She slipped into the room, looking towards the chair ten feet from her. He was dozing, this darkly complected man, peacefully it sounded. Padding quietly she stood between his legs as they were and pointed the blade over the lapel on his left breast pocket and pressed it halfly. Her eyes raked his face slowly, the warmth of the fire, heating her hand even inside the leather gloves. Who was this man? What had he done to them?   
  
Day after Day  
  
Night after Night  
  
Loneliness creeps in her window,  
  
She likes the dark   
  
Turns off the light  
  
Rehearsing a kiss on her pillow  
  
She cries:   
  
"It's all in a days work"  
  
Riven pressed a bit, and her heart caused a tremor. She shouldn't. She couldn't. She could contact him. Would take her away if he found out they'd even charged her with a task. With something to challenge. He'd make her, break her, fix the problem.   
  
She couldn't. Swallowing stopped in the middle of her throat, as she watched his chest heave with the deep breaths as she pressed a little harder, still not tearing fabric even. Suddenly, the world became slow motion. His eyes jumped open, locking with hers, and she noticed how bright green they were. Had she seen that from the window? Surely not, she would have remembered these eyes. So bright green, like the grass in perfect summer. So perfect and beautiful.   
  
Turning pages while the memories pass  
  
Familiar faces from a senior class  
  
How the years go by  
  
And it's all in a days work  
  
But only a single moment did their eyes connect. He never realized even, never saw it coming. Jumping forward from the chair to defend himself, toward her, she heard the rip of the cloth, and some part of her mind shuddered as a wave of nausea found her head but didn't come. He choked, said something, too faint for her to hear, was whispered from his lips before wetness came from between them. Was it a Hail Mary? She felt a wetness flow over her gloves, and the nausea came again.   
  
BE STILL! BE BRAVE! It only felt like water she tried to tell herself, but her whole body was shaking now. He sprawled, sending her tumbling, to regain her balance and jump up.   
  
"Pa-pa?"  
  
Casse whirled around, the blade creating an arc in the air, till her eyes stopped in the doorway. There stood little Regina. The little gold Christ angel. Her eyes were covered in sleep, her small form surrounded in what look like a soft flannel night gown. In her hand she held a Victorian night doll close, and one pale hand rubbed at an eye before she noticed Riven.  
  
Dearest Ruby,  
  
Hope you reach your star  
  
Don't ever change  
  
Stay as sweet as you are  
  
And when a tear drop falls  
  
She calls it a days work  
  
She calls it a day  
  
Regina' eyes went wider than she thought possible, and Casse was sure this time it was not her heart, nor her body that shuddered uncontrollably, but her soul. A whimper left the small golden haired girls mouth, as her lips began to tremble in confusion. But her eyes darken, fast, so bright like her fathers…like…  
  
Children weren't dumb as many people thought, most of the time they were smarter than anyone gave them credit for. Her lungs were sucking in a deep breath, as Casse's eyes were clouded suddenly with moisture as did the child's, though she had nothing to cling to but the knife in her hand dripping with moist red dripping blood.   
  
"I'm….." Casse shook hard, unable to control her body. Mother!!!!! Beautiful mother!!!! What have I done!!!!! Why didn't you stop me? Why didn't you save me? Why didn't I die?   
  
Oh, woo, she waits,  
  
By the telphone  
  
For the car he promised  
  
Of woo, it's late,  
  
She puts her heart away for another….  
  
"I'm sorry," the words were heartfelt, barely a ramble of a mad whisper, but she knew as the child she had been the words were hollow, empty like the eyes of the corpse behind her, like the arms that held her through the blast form the bomb. Gone….never to be refilled, replace. Never to be forgotten or forgiven.   
  
Day after Day  
  
Night after Night  
  
Loneliness creeps in her window,  
  
She likes the dark   
  
Turns off the light  
  
Rehearsing a kiss on her pillow  
  
She cries:   
  
"It's all in a days work"  
  
Suddenly the scream came from the mouth of the child and Riven was running. Through the skylight, breaking the glass, setting off the screaming alarm, the dogs barking, uncaring anymore. Her heart was drum, pounding in her chest, only waves of the pain. Her feet thudding loud as quakes in her head, through her body, she sped through the fields, heedless of direction now. She ran because she could not do anything but that. She ran till to moon, the far sides, without knowledge of where she went, tears flooding her cheeks.   
  
He was the first. The very first. His eyes would never be forgotten, nor the smell of his blood, or that smell so much like the cigar smoke that had been on his evening jacket. He wasn't the last, but always remember to be the first. She ran so far, she tried so fast, cried so hard, and far too late she realized, she never even knew his name.   
  
Day after Day  
  
Night after Night  
  
Loneliness creeps in her window,  
  
She likes the dark   
  
Turns off the light  
  
Rehearsing a kiss on her pillow  
  
She cries:   
  
"It's all in a days work"  
  
All in a days work…  
  
Yea…. 


	16. F16 The Worst of Her Mistakes

Who: Casse   
  
Where: A few different places  
  
When: Flashback/Flash Forward 16.....all between 11 and 12  
  
"You think I'm going to let you die!?!?! Bastard!" She spit at him, though it made no difference in the raindrops. Her clothes were in tatters, and just like him, her body had cuts and blood in so many places you couldn't find an unmarked spot. Her chest was heaving rapidly and her eyes were dark near black as was the aura around her. Tears, angry and hurt, were crawling down her face in rebellion against everything she felt.   
  
"You will never get off that easy!!!!!" She kicked him hard on his side, the shirt disintegrating, and the spot where she'd kicked him disintegrating flesh and blood and bone. Like a hungry parasite it ate at his flesh, making him shudder and shake. A man not easily taken down, drawn down by his own blood.   
  
Crashing to her knees she barely felt the slick water beneath her. She could only feel the sobs that escaped her chest and lips. The tears that coursed down her cheeks. The life fleeing from this body before her. Reaching out her fist, clenched she beat on his stomache, beat with all the fury in her heart and her memory. With everything that had caused her to run away and ruin her life.  
  
"It's all your fault!" She sobbed as she fell across him, still blackening more of him, burying her face in his chest and stomache among her arms. "...all your fault..."  
  
"...all your fault."  
  
~*~*~  
  
Casse stood gazing out a window calmly. Except neither she nor what she looked at were specifically calm. Outside a tree was being shook rough by the wind. Leaves were falling in dozens each time the branches were shaken, and she decided she felt decidedly like that poor tree out there. Like she lost a little more of herself with each passing gust of wind.  
  
The footsteps at the doorway to the room disturbed her though, and her finger tensed a bit on the inner ledge of the window. She closed her eyes, the last sight being that of her fingers tensing and the sound of those steps being taken as she spoke very quietly. "When did you find out?"  
  
"This morning." He was getting closer to her, and all she felt was a dawning coldness across her figure. He was stopped now. About ten feet from her, surprised she hadn't turned to him, and she wasn't being more receptive to his presence of voice. "When you did."  
  
She leaned forward and let her temple rest on the glass. It sent a small impulse of cold through her skin, giving her Goosebumps up and down her arms and legs. For a moment she felt like any normal girl, but it was rebutted by the fact she wasn't normal. She'd never get to be normal.   
  
"When will you tell him?"  
  
Whirling around she faced him, her expression was fierce, her eyes mimicked the sky outside, seen at once through the closed window behind her. A cloudy grey, churning restlessness. "Never."  
  
"He knows you're here." Patric said as he moved the red rose bud that was in his lapel, taking it out. The stem grew longer as he pulled it out, and it began a softer grey color, almost edging on a silver white, but very much greyish. He held the rose out to his sister with a soft pained expression for her situation. "Ororo talked to him yesterday."  
  
"I always thought he kept in touch, but I couldn't ever find a proof. Will he--" Case reached out and took the rose, but stopped short of touching the stem, her eyes on Patric and the uncomfortable movement he made. It seemed like her figure crumbled a little and she pulled her arm back hugging herself. "Of course not. He thinks I chose you over him."  
  
"Cassidy-luv..." he started softly and she looked back at him warningly so sharp it made him stop.  
  
"No, Patric." She was starting to frown and ti was becoming the black cloud on her eggshell white face. "No. Just no. Don't even think it."  
  
"Remy deserves-"  
  
"What I gave him!" Casse yelled as the tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She looked off to her side her hands moving down her arms, slowly to her stomach. "His freedom. From me and the danger I'll put his life in. The freedom I can't give his child yet."  
  
"He'd come back if you told him," the male voice whispered into her hair. He was pulling her close her, trying to bring her back from the dark obliette of her soul. This torture chamber she had created for herself, that no one could ever near. He knew she would always be her worst enemy, even if she never saw it.   
  
Casse whispered softly as she felt Patric arms encircle her to hug her. "He wouldn't come for me. He'd only come out of duty to the child, to his child, Patty."  
  
~*~*~  
  
And the rain continued to shatter them with pelting drops of water, till her chest stopped heaving and she pulled away. The blackness was eating him away now. His side was slowly moving across and the center of where she'd been crying across him was eating through flesh and bone....giving her the gruesome look of his innards as they too were attacked.   
  
"Can't get off that easy..." it was mumble of insanity as she pressed her hands on his stomach. Into the places were the blackness was eating him away. She didn't flinch at touching his organs and entrails as she closed her eyes. She jerked hard and felt the world around her falling apart. She was no longer part of the real world.  
  
It was a world of colors and strings inside her head......one that promised only chaos for a favor.   
  
She stared at her choice like she had a million years to weight it, and then yanked it like she couldn't choose too fast. Without coming out, the aura around her skin, the black death of her destruction of life, snapped suddenly. It was like an explosion was taking place. It was replaced with a blue aura, soft cyan blue all over her form, pulsating brightest around her heart.  
  
There wasn't a single thought in her body that would have let this man die. If she ever let herself dig far enough, all she wanted in this world for him to look at her the way he had when she was a child. When she had been his little princess. Before all the tragedy. Before he looked at her like she was a mirror to someone she wasn't. She just wanted his approval, his love, and his acceptance.   
  
The blue aura traveled through her arms into him, and started to surround his body, until they were a bonfire of blue glowing so bright one could have seen them like a bright star on the ground from far in the air. It could have been a moment or a dozen hours, she wouldn't have been able to tell when she opened her eyes. All she would be able to tell was with positive knowledge she'd taken from him what she'd given him and how she was.  
  
"....no..." It was a soft word, like something just dawning on a person who had been lost inside themselves or something else. A gasp of surprise against waves of pain that pounded her body like a raging torrent threatening to drown her in that single second she opened her eyes to.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Casse stood gazing out a window calmly. Except neither she nor what she looked at were specifically calm. She was remembering standing here under such different circumstances, watching in wonder, fascination, and terror this simple sight out of the window. Stupid tree. There wasn't a breeze now, and the leaves were all on the ground below it. It was empty and seemed alone now to her. So much like her.   
  
The footsteps at the doorway to the room disturbed her thoughts, as they often did now and she resigned herself to someone else trying to cheer her up. Even Ororo had tried to make her feel better, and it had only left them both awkward. It was Patric again, carrying to cups of tea, staring at her dressed in her traveling clothes. The ones she'd warn the entire time when she'd been away from them, but never once while she stayed.   
  
The black leather, and white silk. Her body was completely unscared now, but everyone in the mansion remembered what she'd look like when their father had carried her into the mansion. Cut in a million pieces, bleeding and unable to help herself, looking like she might not make another second breathing even.   
  
She sighed softly turning to take the cup of tea from him. Hmm. Lemon. Mother's favorite. He drank it on special occasions, how odd. She took a sip, slightly burning the tip of her tongue and mummered. "It's not a special occasion."   
  
Meeting his eyes, she felt the impulse to throw the cup at the floor. Those eyes so full of pain, confusion, and this want, no need, to help her through this. "You're here with me still. It's reason enough for me, chiisai tsuki."  
  
"It would be pointless to tell you I wish you didn't have to share those moments with me," a whisper escaped her lips.  
  
"No one would be able to take it from me. I wouldn't let them," he said, his face darkened at the idea. This man who was such the opposite of her. He'd stayed and fought through everything, not run in terror. Made the right choices, suffering both the consequences and the gathering the fruit of it's bounty. "Not anything from your first heart beat till..."  
  
The haunted look took his eyes, the one he only had when they talked about Jennifer, and she touched his hand lightly. "I know, Patty. I just wish it wasn't always pain I was sharing with you. I need to ask something of you though."  
  
He was taking a drink of his tea, when he'd looked over the rim, curious to why she'd ask before asking. It wasn't her nature. She was divide and conquer, take what you want, demand...and no one saw this softer, unsure side, that stood before him without it's walls or towers or guards. This precious little light of his younger sister by so little time. He nodded cautiously and curiously.   
  
"I know Remy's coming back, Patty." Casse said softly, with the whist someone could place in a sigh. " I heard them talking about it in the kitchen when I passed by last night, late. Did you tell him? Anything?"  
  
His expression seemed to go through so much. That's what this was about. Her sorely missed lover. His heart felt urges of protection, anger and jealously, all kept within bounds within being shown, though he she could feel them. "Only what everyone knows. There was a fight. He made it out fine.....you just barely."  
  
"Good." She held the empty teacup up a second and some began to materialize by her in mid air, sort of there and sort of not. It looked like a brick, but seemed too thin. She set the cup on it and it stayed there, as she turned back to looking out the window. "I want it kept that way. He's only to know I had a terrible fight with father."  
  
"But, Cass, surely, now?"   
  
"No, Patric." Her voice was hollow and empty, and her body as barren of life as that tree outside the window was now. "No more. It was a terrible fight and because of it I left the house the moment I woke up. There were no good-byes and no one cried for my loss. Once again."   
  
"And there never was a baby." And down her cheeks fell a few tears, because she wouldn't be the one to tell anyone who felt a need to be loved and proved that one of the only things they had ever wanted was kept from them and then no longer exsisted before they had a chance to be there and defend it.   
  
~*~*~  
  
"...no...no! No! NO!"   
  
She was screaming the word with all she had. All the strength she had left was in the screaming that made her throat raw. She was covered in blood, so much her skin almost could be found under all the wounds. The dark blackness was in her skin, had hollowed her out in place. Blood was gushing from her form where she was on her knees, using all her strength to stay erect screaming out. Gushing from all the places were the mans wounds had been.  
  
There was no possible way to even scramble her cells, her thoughts to making her powers behave. She was fluctuating colors between the blue, the black, the silver white, and the rainbow hue around her skin......it was going hay wire as she fell to her side. Blood slackened her fall causing her to slide a little more than normal, but she never noticed. She was too busy screaming.   
  
Screaming it all out. All in one word. The terror, the sheer anger, and humility. She'd cost her the last precious thing in her life again. And then she was caught. Two rough arms, pulling her inward. A curse somewhere during a black flash, and a burning sound that faded again against the gruff sound near her cheek.   
  
"Snap out a' it"  
  
Casse never heard that though through the screaming the issued from her mouth. It was dead. She'd killed it. For the man now holding her, she'd killed the only important thing in her life. It felt like her soul and heart was shredded worse than her body could come near to. And then it was gone.....the numbing feeling had taken her legs, and was traveling up her body very fast.   
  
Her eyes rolled in her head, and she blinked them wide when something struck her cheek sharply. "Don't go tha way, Casse. It's not yer time."  
  
Her eyes rolled to him, still dark, and deader in the blue color, than they had been in the pure black of her anger. His face was coming in to her field of vision slowly. Dark and rough, with those eyes. Those eyes that haunted her mind and her dreams.   
  
Her daddy. Why couldn't she move her hand? A sharp blow was struck on her opposite cheek. Why was he? And her other one. Her eyes rolled to a side, and she felt her body moved like a sack of potatoes until she could see his face again. It was at an odd angle. And did it seem fuzzy? Sharp blow again. No, not so sharp anymore. It was softer. Further away.  
  
He was saying something....but she couldn't hear. It was too quiet. Was he whispering? Why didn't he talk louder? Was that a tingle in her cheek? Then. There. Again. It came back. Sharper, sharper, her cheek was bleeding now, and burning, and things were coming clearer. His face. His voice, angry, and full of fear.  
  
"Yer not going to die on me, akiko tsuki. I won't loose you, too."   
  
Why was he afraid? He was never afraid. He was her daddy. Indestructible. Unbeatable. He was like god. But human. Weren't all daddy's like that? What was happening? Everything kept going black and then the pain in her cheek would come again and she'd see his face.   
  
Why didn't he have any more cuts on his face? Why was he crying? Why wasn't he bleeding. She gasped suddenly as she felt her head slapped really hard, like she'd caught the full brunt and he stopped when she convulsed and coughed. Something thick and dark bubbled up from between her lips. Was that black? It shouldn't be black.   
  
Why was it black? And then it struck her, like a flood of lucid pictures, as her eyes rolled back into her head and the world seemed to be lost completely in the blackness, like the stuff that coursed down her lips, her voice just barely collecting enough to whisper.   
  
"Your fault." 


	17. F17 A Bitter Sweet GoodbyeHello

Flashback 17: A Bitter Sweet Goodbye-Hello  
  
Where: Italy...Wild Moon Month  
  
When: Flash back forward....between Flashback's 11 and 12  
  
"Are you sure?" He asked.   
  
"I'm positive." She replied.   
  
"But you could-" he started, and she broke in.   
  
"No. No, I couldn't. The Hellfire Mansion isn't home the way the Xavier's was, and the X-Men will always see our mother in me." Her lips formed a fretful expression that rarely graced her face, of confusion.   
  
"Everyone loves you. They don't want you to...." the sentence stopped though as he looks ashamed to say a certain word because he knew she was about to do it again, and that thought alone was killing him. It would hurt more than ever to watch her go this time.   
  
"Vanish?" Casse said softly against the breeze that stirred around them. She looked off to one side of him. "We knew this would to time at a point, Patric. I don't work well with the X-Men, and they can't see me for the shadows. We knew it would come down to if I could fit in with them again. If I felt like I fit in and could be at home there."  
  
She reached out and took his hands, for a moment feeling the love and terror that coursed through him, without her powers even. She held this large man in sway the same way he would, if he threatened to leave her forever. Her eyes softened. "Oh, Patty-patch."  
  
Raising his hands to her lips she kissed the center at the apex half on each side and pulled them close against right below her neck holding his hands just looking at him. The burning in her eyes was subsided by small clear jewel like drops that began to fall.   
  
"I'll always love you. I just can't stay here anymore than I can't take you with me. Look at you, angel. You came all the way to Italy to make me happy. You abadonded your team, and -yes they understood- but eventually you'll have a yearning to go home to them. To continue in your fight for the better world. For mothers dream."  
  
One of his hands fought free of hers and reached up to stroke a line down her cheek. "Your crying, Casse."  
  
There was an attempt made to smile at his words and the soft gentle tone in his voice but she failed miserably. She blinked and more tears fell, but her eyes never left him. She used a small voice, even as her smallest threatened to crack. "Of course, I'm not. Remember? Casse hasn't cried since her mother left her that early morning."  
  
His fingers of the one hand were still tracing her cheek gently, slowly growing wet in the gentle attempt. "If the moon could cry, she would cry for you."  
  
Casse stilled for a second and looked down, though she didn't break away from his touch. The thunder in the sky seemed to herald her words, though they weren't connected. "That's.....what father said over mother's coffin at the viewing. Right before he left."  
  
"Never forget she loves you, chiisai tsuki. You are our mothers daughter. Her only daughter. And if she were alive she would gather you in her arms, with tears of love, and hold you tight against all the world." He watched as more tears started to fall from her eyes. Their mother was many things, legend, hero, teacher, and friend.....but she was their mother, and that was what mattered most in their eyes.   
  
She was more than anyone had or ever would be.   
  
Not even stopping to correct him about Jennifer, she nodded slowly. She was the only daughter raised and grown in her eyes. The one she called her angel. Her head shook slowly, and her hair rose and fell with her, oddly for her normal, it was cut loose. No bands, no braids, no do dads. Just loose down her back, curling at it's ends about at mid thigh.   
  
"If you want to come hom-" he broke up at how fast she looked up, and he shook his head sharp about to say something when she raised her fingers, from the free hand to cover his lips.   
  
"My sweet angel. My patty patch." She leaned in and kissed his lips very softly, before looking down again, her entire form beginning to shake obviously before she looked up again. Small tears still traveling well worn path on her cheeks. "My home will never be a place. My home has been only one thing since I was born, since i was scarred or since i was free. You are my home, Patty. I will always come home to you."  
  
"Promise me," Patric said suddenly, his lips across her hair on her hair as he pulled her close and she didn't resist or fight at all. He regretted his tone, the fear and pleading in it. He didn't want to let go of her. Not now, not ever. He wanted to wake up and find this all a dream.   
  
A horn blared and she jumped, pulling from his arms to look over her shoulder. At the same time rain drops started to drop on her lightly. Casse looked back to him slowly and tried to offer a smile. "My ride..."  
  
"You plan for everything," her brother whispered softly. His heart hurt inside his chest and he withheld a wish for it to stop beating should she walk away and never come back. Never return to his arms and his eyes. He didn't want to live with his twin. It was hard enough to live when she ran so far from where she came from. "Will you ever see him again?"  
  
"Remy?" Casse questioned lightly and shook her head deftly. "No." She said the word as though it was a proclamation made by god and written in the tablets. "I know you want to tell me he doesn't think I betrayed him, but I have Patric. With every word I never spoke to him and every secret I with held. Especially the one i lost. I may not have betrayed him in his eyes....but I have in mine. No. No, I hope to never see Remy again a day in my life."  
  
"You're a bad liar." He said as she began to straighten up and gain her courage to walk away. He could feel her carefully constructing the will power to walk away from him. It wasn't as easy for her as he wondered sometime. He knew it wasn't, but some how it made him feel better to know she didn't walk away with a completely eased conscience.   
  
"Just one trying to make it true," Casse said softly and she tugged at her hand as the horn blared again. He didn't release her though and she looked at him a touch annoyed and confused. "Patric?"  
  
"You didn't promise." But as he said the words he released her hand completely, and he, too, stood tall. Taller than her and dressed impeccably in the grey suite with the white rose in it's lapel this time.   
  
She took steps backward looking a little surprised and when the horn blared again, she took more steps towards it. She felt the sinking sensation inside her, inside him. As she opened the door, she looks back over her shoulder and stared at her brother, their vaunted leader and mentor now, and the way the rain seemed to shine around him, as it must around her, but she didn't think about it.   
  
'I promise.' Her lips mouthed silently, and Patric stared at her a moment longer before, his voice exploded inside her head. It surprised her to the point that a new wave of tears threatened to break. {I love you, akiko tsuki. Forever.}  
  
Casse slipped into the car, told the man where to go, rolled the divider wall up, and placed her hand on the window. He still stood in the rain staring at her, becoming soaked. {Forever, Patric. Forever.} Then the car rolled away and tears rolled down her face, like the torrent that slapped the top of the Limo she stepped into. It probably wasn't the wisest thing to do, but once she was done crying, she pressed a button on the arm of her seat.  
  
The moon roof opened completely and she stood up, through it and looked at the world around her, the rain soaking her the moment her body was outside cover. It didn't phase her thought. Tears bubbled down her cheeks, and her heart thundered with a terrified beat of rejoice. A clap of thunder and a strike of lightening brightened the sky for a few seconds, made Casse lips form a small mar of a smile and then she whispered against the torrents of wind and rain.   
  
"Hello, life, you big beautiful, bitch. I've missed you, too." 


	18. F18 Premonition to Disaster

"Premonition to Disaster"  
  
What: Flashback/forward  
  
When: Before Flashback 1  
  
Clang.   
  
Clang.   
  
Clang.   
  
The sound could have been anything. It could have been a forge, heated up to scalding where something wonderful was made. It could have been a father clock counting up or even down to some event that had happened, was about to happen. It could have been the beats of someone's heart, steady and true, yet somehow sharp.   
  
Perhaps it could have been all of them, or perhaps it was simply what it was. A duel of slender steel between two combatants who made it more of a dance than a competition between the two of them. It was easy in watching to tell who the successor of this match would be.   
  
Her body movements were more graceful. Her sword so fluid that it was more like an extenuation of her body. She watched her opponent for her actions and reactions, while her opponent was very much opposite. She was all fire, without a formed direction. Her movements were based on that energy, without hesitation. She had no patience and moved more on the need to win, than the ability to look for the win.  
  
And those things resounded out as the first with a spectacular move swiped the second hard, and made her sword go flying into the air to land some fifteen feet away. Her petite body went rigid as though she couldn't believe she'd been shown defeat.  
  
"Again?" Her voice called out, as her face turned to the long thin sword lying on the ground. Her voice was thin, almost as thin as the blade, and as silver as it was too. Sometimes she almost felt a twinge when the young girl spoke. Something she was making sure to notice now.  
  
"No." He head snapped to her mentor, who had her blade, tip slightly into the ground. Not a good care, especially after lecturing her many times on how to care for hers. "You've had enough practice for today. Go inside and relax for a while."  
  
The older woman regarded her charge as she noticed the twitch that kept her from rolling her eyes while being watched. The slump that showed that she was disappointed both in the fact she was being sent inside and in the fact she hadn't won once and feared failure in her teachers eyes.   
  
The looked very much like duplicates in many ways both with long black hair and snow pale skin even in this humid summer sun. While her charge was a mixture of dissents, she herself was very much so Greek down to her pale violet grey eyes. Very different from the vivid sapphires of her pupil, too.  
  
Their pasts were different but they had atleast one key activist that effected the both of them, and she feared that the ingredients were only coming together now for the reaction to what had happened. That they'd simply been bidding their time, because of the age, and the times, and the world.   
  
"You're doing a lot better, Casse. Keep practicing." She said, watching those eyes take her in for a moment and then turn her away, before she defaulted with a nod and left her mentor standing on the green lawn that spread out around them.  
  
Watching her go, taking the sword and carrying it palms up as she'd been instructed not so long ago, she looked off to her side for a moment. Her hair flew about her face in ebony ribbons, laced with red clothed pieces flapping in the breeze intertwined with them.   
  
"You could have come out and watched her without hiding." When there was no response, her lips crooked in an odd half smile, somewhere between amusement and annoyance. "She's your daughter. She does need to know you are still there watching over her."  
  
The was the faintest rustle of movement, a sound that most trained ears wouldn't pick up even, and trusting in that sound she heard she sat on the ground. Taking the Sai and placing it across her knees, she ran a piece of the red cloth across it. Not cleaning it though, just running it along the metal.  
  
She was growing accustom to the fact he didn't like to speak. He seemed to stay long enough to listen and spoke seldom to any of them even now. Even years later. It fell to them to pick up the pieces, to try and find ways that eventually would bring him back.   
  
"She'd make you proud. She's learning faster than most of the children that come near to her age, as though she were to simply touch books and soak their information. It's something of an awe to watch. She is learning as much of everything as she can from stars to cooking to people to-"  
  
"Fightin'."  
  
She shivered when he spoke, and for a second tried to place that last time he had spoken to her. It hadn't been long. But the last time there's been an actual conversation? Too long.   
  
"Yes, fighting. She is your daughter, in almost every sense of the word. She takes to it like she has a burning need to know it intimately. To know how to use it, beat it and even discard it once learned. She's trying to master too much of it for her young age."  
  
Running her thumb across the blade, soft enough to feel the razor sharp edge, but not enough to cut herself she thought of the things she thought that no else seemed to notice.  
  
"She is all will, to be who you are." Or were she thought silently. "She wants to prove herself to you. And though she is very like you, that fire in her eyes isn't. That's her mother, almost incarnate."  
  
"You'r not sayin' somethin'."  
  
Elektra pressed her finger tip against the point, and pulled her finger to look at the jewel drop of blood for a second. It wasn't anything special anymore, didn't even hurt. Running it on the red cloth, she thought on his words, before adjusting the sword.   
  
"You're going to loose her." she said softly.   
  
Having tilted the blade, she caught his eyes in the reflection of the silver. Almost unfindable in the expanse where he hid, but they stood out to her. She'd known them to long. Even knew the things that ran wild in them now, and because of it didn't look away.   
  
"If you don't do something soon, your going to loose her completely." 


	19. F19 It's Mostly About LoveAnd Freedom to...

Flashback 19: It's Mostly About Love...And Freedom to Be Yourself  
  
Where: The XH Mansion  
  
When: Flash back/forward....between Flashback's 16 and 17, probably right before part three in 16, give or take a day  
  
IDedicated: To my mother, on the event of her accident. Because it wasn't special, or spectacular, or world changing......just like any other life altering event, that makes you realize how close death can really be./I  
  
~*~*~  
  
Sitting in the crook of the tree limb she could almost hear her younger self humming something she'd forgotten a million years ago. She'd always come and sat up here when she wanted to escape to just be able to hear her thoughts and make sense of the world. She'd come here to whisper her wishes of true love, her secrets about learning to ride a motorcycle, even to leave her tears for not understanding her father.   
  
Sitting in the crook of the tree just barely hearing the words of yesterday she watched a group of fledgling children testing their wings in a world they had no true idea what would do to them. They were training with Bo Staffs against each other in the back allotted space of yard. Some didn't have the vaguest clue how to hold one and others got it with instruction, some picked it up like they were born naturals with the weapon.   
  
Looking off into the distance she wondered where her father was. How long had it been since she'd called him her father out loud and not by his name simply to outrage him by her audacity? He'd vanished between the time he'd told her she wasn't allowed to die and her waking up here all but screaming from the nightmares. She hated sleeping still. The nightmares always came when she slept.   
  
That was why she made Dream promise that when she slept she rarely dreamt, as one of the seven favors he owed her. Keeping tally right, and she always did, she only had four favors left. All she had to do was fall asleep and wish herself to the place of the roses and he'd be there to ask her what her next favor was.  
  
Her father, though, was not as easy to find. Ever. She could do it, but she wasn't sure she wanted to. Not after what she'd done. What they'd both done.   
  
Their fight had always been long and involved. It had been her fault a million times and his fault a millions times. It didn't even matter really who's fault it was anymore, it was just their fight. Their ever constant, and always, fight, that had only subsided on one day for one birthday of hers.   
  
But never was it like that night. At each others throats, poised for the kill. How far would they have gone if she hadn't snapped right back at that moment and brought him back from the brink, she wondered, as she unconsciously stroked her stomach. She had a habit of doing that now. Perhaps even more so now that there was nothing under her hand. No twinkling light, no little life waiting to see the sun shine.  
  
She saved a life that night, at the expense of another. Without knowing it would cost her the unborn child she had saved her father from all the damage she had done. She had almost killed him, saved him, and sacrificed her unborn son.....and he was gone.   
  
Nothing. Nada. Zip. Gone. Just gone.   
  
And she wondered where he was now. She'd known he'd left before she woke up, but after being told she was stable. Questions filled her mind. Especially ones like if he would ever forgive the fact her last words -had they been her last- claimed it was all his fault. Funny, no one she knew, who knew her well enough, and those were few, never would have thought her to care on someone's forgiveness.   
  
This was her father though.   
  
The man who, she had admitted to herself amid healing her own damage from him, she only wanted admiration, trust and love from. Things that she rarely wanted from anyone. She usually only wanted to be left alone to her games, scheme's and foibles. And now....  
  
....she was in the last place she knew to call home to the dictionary description. She'd been here since Patric brought her back about a month ago after she parted way with the Cajun. She was here some days and weeks, and not others. She couldn't get used to the place. There was something the size of a splinter in it, that hit her like a jack hammer, and made it feel like she'd never be able to fit into them.   
  
Or maybe it was just her reputation, the snide comments, the side ways glances, and the fact no one who hadn't been here during her growing up, wanted to even give her the time of day. Hard to be in a place your supposed to call home while you might as well be guarding your back for knives in the night.   
  
"Are you really her daughter?"  
  
Casse snapped out of her thoughts and looked down the tree. There was a young boy down there. Young? He was probably only four years younger than her, but she had the time skip so he was still perceived so much younger. I she remembered right, and she always did, his name was Blane. He had the power to make small objects just appear, his problem was getting where they came from to localize and be safe.   
  
She rolled her eyes slightly and moved to look down the tree, this view reminding her of the movie with the little black haired fairy and the blonde three inch tall human.   
  
"Are you really a mutant?"  
  
He stood back and scratched his neck when he realized she was moving to come down. His voice sounded a tiny bit disappointed and amused at her mocking tone, and it showed how much more he really was a quiet one. "Well, yeah."  
  
"Then I must be her daughter," Casse said, with a soft jump from the lowest meeting of large branches. She brushed the leaves off her shoulders and pulling it out of the ties of the small red shirt she wore, that was a solid front like a tank top till her sides and crises crossed in only about seven thin straps, and went about brushing her jeans off before looking up at him.   
  
"Why?" She asked suspiciously as she looked to the boy, not so much realizing leaves were still twined inside her long raven locks giving her a dryad or mischievous child look for the moment. Most people who asked about her mother were frowned on by her. Only older people, people who had know her, and well, Patric, weren't looked down on for it. They'd known; beyond the legend.   
  
"Well, because you don't strike me as anything like her," he said giving her a circumspect look.   
  
She almost laughed and covered it pleasantly with two finger to her lip in the center were a smile crept out along her lips all the way. That was down right amusing, since half the world only saw her mother in her, and half the world saw her as the anti-heir of the family who was anything but family.   
  
"What?" He asked suddenly, his voice growing a touch defensive. "Well, you don't and I'm not going to lie to you and say you do. She was, like, this huge hero. She knew what she was doing and why. That it was right, and good, and just."  
  
"Do you memorize that out of a history book, Blane?" Casse asked, with a strange gentleness that played against her complete disgust for the fairy tale story he'd just given her mother as a light.   
  
"I-uh- Everyone knows that," he said, shifting his weight.  
  
"My mother," Casse said pushing off the tree and walking a few feet, her fingers together as she thought on what to say. "never wanted to be that - that description you just gave her. She only wanted to make a difference, make a better world for people like her to live in."  
  
Even though she never got to live in it herself, specifically. Would that have been different if she'd had the vaguest idea of the powers she would possess at the age of five? Would she have been able to change anything? Was life this way on purpose? So she could always blame herself for her mothers death, even while blaming her father for the way her life turned out?  
  
"But she was hero!"  
  
"No. She was a freedom fighter, fighting for the worlds freedom."  
  
Blane blinked and looked at her like she was crazy. She looked from him to the house, still listening when he asked the question, even as she met Patrics eyes in a window floors away. "And what are you?"  
  
My fathers mirror image to my mother. Her older brother Steven Ray's pain in the ass. Her twins, Patric's angel and bane. Her younger bother, Junior's old baby sitter and bed warmer. A stain on the banner of the X-Men. A damn good villain. A damn good chaotically neutral person because she didn't care whether it was the right or wrong side that won, so long as she got her way.  
  
"The same."  
  
"Huh." He said, but she could hear the utter amusement and waited for. you could count these things. Three. Two. One. "And what do you fight for?"  
  
"My own freedom," Casse said looking back at him, wondering why she'd said it. It sounded more true than anything she'd thought. She couldn't remember the last time she felt free. She gave him a slightly smile and followed that up with. "If you don't mind, I have something I need to do."  
  
"No, of course, Miss Grey. Class looks to be about to go back into session now anyway."  
  
She watched him walk off and wondered where he would be in five years. She rarely would admit it but she hoped the people she saw here ended up on x-teams faster than the gutter and alley's she walked in willingly. They were places that tore away every gentleness and security you ever had. Every sense of self ever found.   
  
They gave you a look in the mirror you could never forget or out run.  
  
Walking inside she dropped a letter in the letter box. It was addressed to this place, but she'd learned easily, the sending mail out under certain names made it take four days to get back to here. she placed a hand on the letter box and took a deep breath, knowing what she was about to do.  
  
The next two days would be hard and the letter had been hard enough to write. Perhaps it wouldn't achieve anything but a small clear spot in her conscience for the first time since she was fifteen. It wasn't much, but it was hers and what she had written was the whole truth for once.  
  
She was her parents daughter, both her mother and her father. She couldn't change that, down deeop she had never wanted to. She only had to learn to live with it finally, tens years after she ran away from it. It couldn't be that bad after all she'd been through so far, could it?  
  
~*~*~  
  
Contents of the Newest Letter via the Grangerz System from B"You've...Sent Mail"/BPart 3:  
  
IFather,  
  
I'm putting this ugly event behind me. I'm putting all of it behind me.  
  
I'm putting everything that's transpired between us since the Sapphire of the Night heist behind me, aside from my twenty first birthday.   
  
I'll be gone by the time you get this. I can't change the past.   
  
I've already changed the only future I thought I had left with one choice. I don't know where I'm going now, and have no one to see me off, or to meet there.   
  
I'll come back one day when I can meet your eyes, off of the battle field, without shame.  
  
Don't hate me.  
  
Casse/I 


End file.
